Array of individually angled mirrors reflecting disparate color sources toward one or more viewing positions to construct images and visual effects

ABSTRACT

A general purpose image and visual effects display apparatus, with associated methods, which is comprised of an array of independently angled reflective or refractive elements wherein the varying angle pattern of each element across said array is designed to reflect or refract specifically designed as well as fortuitously located existing colors, in precisely determined patterns, to make apparent to specific viewing or receiving locations a wide range of complex emergent visual and other effects. In some embodiments very high resolution and high color fidelity image display is possible. In other embodiments moving images akin to video can be displayed, using no electronics or moving parts. In other embodiments true binocular 3D images can be displayed directly to viewers, without the need for special 3D viewing glasses. Many of the embodiments and methods are applicable to non-visible light and other reflectable wave-based phenomena.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority under 35 USC120 to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/799,553 filed Apr. 26, 2010that in turn claims priority and the benefit under 35 USC 119(e) to U.S.provisional patent application No. 61/214,564, filed Apr. 25, 2009 bythe present inventor, the entire contents of all of which areincorporated herein by reference.

FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH

Not applicable.

SEQUENCE LISTING OR PROGRAM

Not applicable.

BACKGROUND Field

The invention relates to structures for representing full color images,animation, 3D graphics and other visual effects, and particularly tostructures comprising a plurality of tile elements which reflect orrefract light and the color reflection sources which are optionallyorganized in conjunction with or tracked and cataloged to be reflectedby said array, to construct said visual effects.

Prior Art

U.S. Pat. No. 3,173,985, “Method of Reflection for Producing a PleasingImage”, by Clifford A. Wendel, 1965, describes a method of producing agrey scale image on a screen by reflecting a light source onto atranslucent screen using a faceted mirror surface.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,554, “Method and Apparatus for Providing a VariableMultiple Image Visual Effect”, by James Seawright, 1987, describes anarray of mirrors differentially angled so as to all reflect the viewer'sown face or eye, back to himself, to present multiple identical selfreflections to the viewer.

Published patent application Ser. No. 11/570,589, “Sculptural ImagingWith Optical Tiles”, by Roderick Quin, 2008, uses arrays of shaded tilesto presents images directly to the viewer.

Visual artist Daniel Rozin in 2003 produced an art installation called“Broken Red Mirror”, in which the large shards of a broken mirror wereangled to reflectively reconstruct a torn photograph spread on a wallbehind the viewer of the mirror shards.

An article published in 2007 on the inhabitat.com web site describes anarticulated mirror array built by Adam Somlai-Fischer and Bengt Sjolen,consisting of several dozen old car side mirrors that could be tilted upor down under software control to present changing reflective patternsand rough images:http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/08/11/aleph-mirror-environmental-art/

SUMMARY

Each reflective tile in a mirror tile array as described herein is, inseveral embodiments, functionally a pixel. A mirror tile pixel's coloris dynamically changeable by changing the reflection vector from viewerto mirror to color source. Full control over color of each pixel/mirroris possible by giving each mirror its own dedicated reflection colorsource, which is possible by angling each mirror so that it reflects adifferent position in space, at which can be placed any color source.With control over the color of each mirror/pixel, comes complete controlover the entire image. Any image can thus be presented with this method,up to the resolution of the given mirror array, which by means ofvarious current technologies, is potentially a very high resolution.

A second and different color source can be placed laterally contiguousto the first color source of each mirror/pixel. This second color sourcecan be part of an alternate image. This alternate image can then beviewed by a viewer of the first image from a viewing position laterallycontiguous with the original viewing position. Or, in place of theviewer shifting his position laterally, the second image can also bebrought into view by either pivoting the mirror array a small amount orby moving the color sources.

Further, if the color sources for a series of images are similarly linedup sequentially next to each mirror's/pixel's first two image's colorsources, then this series of images can be viewed in sequence by thesame method of adjusting the reflection vector (either by shiftingviewer position, mirror array angle pivot, or source color position). Ifthis sequence of images is a series of animation or video frames, thenthis static differentially angled mirror array can be used to presentanimation or, essentially, video.

For a more detailed review of some the underlying principles, inaccordance with one embodiment of the invention, picture a ceramic wallmosaic showing a lake-side scene. If every colored ceramic tile in thismosaic is replaced by a tiny mirror, the lake-side scene is lost andreplaced by a reflection of the viewing environment. If each tiny mirroris perfectly in plane with all others, the result is effectively astandard mirror. If the mirror tiles are set out of plane with eachother, the reflected image will be jumbled. Alternatively, in place ofrandomly angled mirror tiles, there are many precise and specific mirrorangle arrangements that support a range of image presentation effects,many of them previously achieved only using live computer displays. As asimple example, the same scene that had been constructed using coloredceramic tiles can be reproduced using mirror tiles, the color of eachtile apparent in reflection from a given viewing position. Thisreflective color mosaic can be very similar to, if not indistinguishablefrom, the original tile display. Many optional additional properties canbe invoked in this display now that the source colors have beenabstracted away from the image. For example, the water can be made toshimmer like water, the tree leaves can be made to wave or animate, invarious ways, whenever a breeze blows through a nearby tree—if this isan outdoor display, and the image's reflective source for green is theleaves of a wind-blown tree. In addition, with certain methods ofplacing each mirror tile's source colors, the original image can bedisplayed in true 3D, or it can be animated in various ways, such as toshow a bird flying through the scene.

The colors in an angled mirror mosaic display are abstracted away fromthe viewing apparatus in a way roughly similar to how a computerdisplay's color palette is abstracted away from the onscreen image,stored in memory where it can be freely and programmaticallymanipulated, or references to it can be manipulated, in both cases toinvoke effects on the displayed image. Both displays' colors are notdetermined by manipulating actual spots of pigment on a display but,much more fluidly, by manipulating numbers, which then determine thedisplay colors. In the mirror display, the number from which color isderived is the array of mirror tile angle settings. These angles uselight reflection vectors roughly similarly to how a computer image usesa digital color lookup table. In both cases, the abstraction betweencolor and display allows programmatic manipulation of the contents ofthe display. The abstraction of color, away from the mirror displayallows, in one sense, a layer of software in a physical object, whereimage effect algorithms can be implemented by the group manipulation ofmirror angle settings, and these algorithms can be executed by thereal-time interplay of light when the viewer moves along a presetviewing path to invoke a predetermined collective reflection vectormovement, thus invoking a predetermined sequence of changes in thereflective source colors of each tile, resulting in an animation orimage other effect.

The simplest class of angled mirror array image effects, effectsconfigured without regard to colors in the viewing environment, includesimage distortions akin to fun house mirror effects, but also sucheffects to a far more complex degree and with fewer mirror shape designconstraints, partially because a mirror array considered as a distortingsurface can have shape discontinuities not possible in a bent or even afolded continuous reflective sheet. In a more interesting class ofeffects, the mirror tile angles are configured with preciseconsideration of the colors constellated in the reflected environment,to invoke a much wider and more useful range of image effects thangeneric distortion effects. For example, a given city scene can bereflectively translated into a photo-realistic portrait, or a mountainscene, etc. Still more diverse effects are possible when the colors andpatterns in the reflected environment are specifically devised andmapped out, and then set into reflectable position, in conjunction withthe formulation of specific mirror angle arrangements. This is where 3Deffects, animation and other unexpected and novel effects arise, in theabsence of a video screen, or of any moving parts in the display device.In some constructions very long form animation is possible—theoreticallyof arbitrary length and, with increasing technical difficulty, anyresolution. This is basically video without electronics and without anymoving parts. This moving images technique is possible using non-moderncomponents, though animation of any length or resolution would be verylabor intensive, without computer assistance in repeating the thousandsof iterations required to set up each frame.

In a more versatile version of this type of display each mirror/pixel isactuated live by computer, and able to be quickly and preciselyretargeted—re-angled—to new color sources, several if not 30 times persecond, taking a fraction of that time in transit between anglesettings, thus supporting high-speed “reflection re-set animation”. Thislive actuated embodiment is much more versatile than static mirror arrayreflected-color reference animation, which is based on mirror pixelsreflection-tracking over printed pixel animation histories, and istherefore limited to preset printed content. In addition, afurther-enhanced live-actuated embodiment tracks, through a real-timevideo feed, both viewer position and all color reflection sourcepositions and their changing color characteristics. By tracking viewerposition, especially eye position, and adjusting all tiles to compensatefor changes in viewer position, the actuated reflective display canunder computer control ensure that the reflected images and effectsremain in view as the viewer moves at will. By tracking the colorenvironment, real-time changes in available reflectable colors can beincorporated into the scene, enhancing a wealth of software controlledinteractive and other visual effects. For one example, if a red carenters the scene it can be tracked and reflected and constitute thesource color of a bouncing ball for part of its drive-by, and then thereflection of the car can be morphed into a realistic reflection of ared car.

Returning again to review some more basic principles, note that a gridof individually angled mirror tiles can effectively act as pixels—pixelsthat reflect rather than radiate light, to redirect local color sourcesby virtue of their differential reflection angles, and present thosecolor sources in any pixel order, thereby constructing any possibleimage, with two key limitations:

the palette of colors in the surrounding environment available to bereflected;

the resolution of the mirror tile grid.

The mirror angle grid constructs a given image by reflecting colors thatare either accidentally or purposefully present in the surroundingenvironment. The random preexisting color set in an environment can beordered into any image whose palette is a subset of that given colorset—or can be mixed from the environmentally available colors. Toconstruct an image, each mirror tile in the grid must be specificallyangled based on the spatial position of each required color in theenvironment, the desired constructed image, and the position of theviewer of the resulting reflectively constructed image. To maximizeavailable display color range, with a given limited availablereflectable palette, groups of mirrors can be treated as “sub-pixels”,or color channels, (and optionally freely sized in relation to eachother), to mix colors.

If, for example, in a given intended display image the 327thmirror/pixel in the 44th mirror/pixel row must be a specific light shadeof orange, to become a tiny section of an image of an orchard, then thatmirror tile must be angled, with respect to the viewer, toward asuitably shaded orange colored object somewhere in the reflectablesurroundings of the mirror array, and so must all other pixels that forma tangerine. The various necessary shades of orange may be reflectedfrom different points in the surrounding environment, and the severaldozen mirror tiles that together construct the tangerine may all beangled in slightly or distinctly different directions or, equally, manyor all of them could be angled toward just a few specific color sources,perhaps seven different shades of orange. If no orange color sourcesexist in the environment of the reflective display, then it may not bepossible in that location to reflectively construct an image of atangerine, at least not an orange tangerine. There would, however,remain the option of reflecting yellows and reds on groups of adjacentmirror tiles, to mix these two colors to thereby derive the requiredorange shades. This is perfectly feasible, provided the requiredcomponent colors are available to mix. If no suitable mix colors areavailable in the reflectable environment, then an object or swatch ofsuitable orange could be purposefully introduced into the scene, toaugment the existing color set. Some reflective grid displays areconstructed solely from existing colors, for various reasons, and someare constructed solely from custom-devised and introduced colors, colorpatterns and assemblages, and some from a mixture of existing andintroduced color sources. Colors and color patterns which are designedspecifically for the purpose of being reflectively reconstructed intomirror grid images can be engineered both independently of the anglesettings of the presentation mirror grid, or can be designed inconjunction with the mirror grid in order to present many image effectsthat are not possible when reflecting only ambient colors. While boththe angled mirror array and the source color pattern are widelyconfigurable alone to produce various effects, the parameters of both ofthese, when adjusted in conjunction, enable effects not possible whensetting the parameters of each element in isolation.

The reflectable color set can thus be a pre-existing randomconstellation of colors, or be an augmented random set of colors, or canbe an entirely constructed image—a very precisely designed colorpattern, sometimes reverse calculated from desired display effects.Display effects can be very complicated, and the reflective referencecolor maps required to produce them can therefore be very complex, largeand elaborate.

The display types possible with this angled reflection array anddesigned source graphics system include still images, multiple differentstill images displayed at the same time to different viewing positions,animation, multiple different animations simultaneously displayed todifferent viewing positions, 3D images with stereoscopic vision, singleaxis 3D rotation, two axis 3D rotation and many other specialty effects.

How can stereoscopic 3D images be presented by static mirrors thatreflect static color arrays? Each eye looks at each mirror tile from aslightly different position, and thus the reflection source seen by eacheye is similarly a different position. In each mirror tile each eye canbe presented a different color in reflection, and thus for each eye adifferent image can be constructed by the entire array. The differentimages seen by the two eyes can be any pair of images, including 3Dimage stereo pairs.

How can animations be presented by static mirrors that reflect staticcolor arrays? The movement of the viewer causes the reflection pointtargeted by each mirror tile to move along a path, that path being theinverse of the movement of the viewer's movement. Each mirror tilereflection target can be set up to move along a different reflectionpath, not overlapping the reflection targets of other mirrors. Alongthat path can be printed color changes that correspond to the changesthat each mirror tile/pixel must display over time and thus form ananimation.

There are embodiments of the invention not based on static mirror arraysand static reflection sources, and in these the animation or otherinteractive effects are not under control solely of the viewer'smovement relative to the mirror array, or other relative movementbetween viewer, mirror array and reflected graphics. In these otherembodiments further interactive elements are supported by dynamiccontrol of elements of the system, such as movement of the mirror arrayas a whole, movement of sections of it, control of individual mirrorangles, movement of the reflected color source or parts of it or the useof a computer display or other programmable or moveable media as thecolor source.

The images presented by this system are visible only from specificviewing areas, where all the prescribed tile reflections converge. Theimage viewing area can be small, or large, or irregularly shaped, andthere can be more than one viewing area per display, each viewing areawith a different image, animation or effect and size. The reflectionreference colors that are reflected toward the viewing area or areas canbe reflection-gathered from many directions, or can be reflected from asmall contiguous area, such as from a small prepared source graphic oftightly packed colors and patterns that support a given effect. Forexample, the ability for the viewer to vary the overall hue orbrightness of the image by moving his position within the viewing areacan be set up by sorting all the source colors by hue or brightness, andthen printing them contiguously in that order. For a simple example, arainbow image can be used as a color source. From a specific position animage reflectively constructed from a rainbow color source will beapparent in true color, but from adjacent positions all mirror tilereflection vectors will be shifted along the source graphic, and thusthe apparent image will be color shifted.

Some embodiments of the invention rely solely upon colors in thesurrounding environment, and do not introduce any additional colorsources. The first step in designing mirror arrays that will extractimages from the environment is to determine the existing colors in theenvironment and then compile them into a list. This palette must list,minimally, not just the specific colors situated in the environment butalso the mirror angle settings at which they are available with respectto the mirror array position. This is the basis for setting the anglesof the mirror tiles to construct an image and direct it toward a givenviewing position in that given environment. In a standard computergraphics program when a given pixel needs to be designated as turquoise,for example, the appropriate RGB (Red-Green-Blue) primary color levelsare assigned to that pixel. To designate a pixel/mirror tile asturquoise in a reflective mirror grid, instead of assigning RGB levels,reflection angle settings are assigned to each mirror tile. The anglesettings of all locally available reflective colors will, generally,have been determined prior to the design of the given image, to confirmthat the all colors necessary to construct that image are reflectivelyavailable.

A more detailed palette/color angle list will include, beyond eachcolor's angle position, additional color source attributes useful forspecialized images and effects. These additional color parametersinclude color correlated to time of day and time of season, color sourcetexture information and various other optional specialty attributes.Especially important and useful for designing reflectively presentedimages is the exact size and shape of each color source. Size of a colorsource determines the size of the viewing area of the reflection of thatcolor. When composing an image with a reflective palette for a givendisplay situation, there is often a minimum required viewing angle, andtherefore a minimum required color source size. As noted, some colors ina given reflected image may be required to have a large viewing angle,while other colors in the same image may not have that requirement, ormay be required to have a small viewing angle. In some instances theforeground of an image might be specified for wide viewability while thebackground is specified to be constructed of very changeable reflectedcolors. The background might therefore be constructed of references tomottled areas, with no consistent coloration, and thus the anglelocations of such textures and small angle color patches would belogged, in a local palette survey, along with the list of large patchesof solid color. Further, mottled areas that are biased toward greens,browns, blues, grays, etc., would be registered separately in a morecomprehensive palette, so that image design would be afforded the optionof a mottled background, as in one case, might horizontally graduatefrom gray, to blue to brown, for example. A wide range of color sourcepattern information can, thus, be usefully logged for use whencreatively composing possible reflectively presented images.

Reflectable texture is a specialty application of the more general andpurer idea of identifying and using solid color sources used in mirrorarrays to allow mirror arrays to in many cases most directly emulatecertain basic traditional display type characteristics. Most of theeffects described herein pertain to the interplay of solid colors, andin most instances the color-reflective mirror array effects discussedare dealing with solid colors. Many of the effects discussed usegradients as color sources, but treat the sections of gradient as solidcolors, since perceptively, they are in effect solid colors. The sameprinciple applies in many cases when compiling ambient environmentalreflectable color lists, where a nearby green tree has both texture andshade changeability, affording an opportunity for these have to beregistered as palette attributes, for proper or accurate imagecomposition. Such a tree color source is not a solid green. A distanttree, by contrast, is, effectively, a solid green, and will be usefultherefore in different and generally more versatile ways. The potentialcombination of pure color effects and the wide range of texture,movement, time-dependent reflectable color sources and a myriad of otherreflectable environmental visual characteristics provides an additionalwide range of creative and utilitarian advantages to reflection basedimaging as described herein.

When a color is present in the environment, or is placed into theenvironment, as a wide reflectable swatch, and a given mirror tiletargets that swatch toward a given viewing position, that color will bevisible in that tile from a wide viewing area. If all color referencesof a display image are large swatches, the viewing area will be widewith respect to the entire image. Likewise for reflectively constructedimages that target small color source swatches. Reflectively targetingthese will result in an image viewable from a correspondingly narrowviewing area.

There can be different color source swatch sizes for different parts ofa given image, and therefore different viewing area sizes for thosedifferent parts of the image. For example, most of an image of a housecan be constructed of wide viewing angle colors, while at the same timethe window panes of the house's windows are constructed of narrowviewing angle colors. This allows a viewer of the image to move within awide area and see the image of the house and windows, though the windowswill be blank, and then move into a small section of the wider viewingarea from which to see colors and images in each window. Each separatewindow's content can, also, become visible from a different area withinthe wider viewing area. Or a combination of still image and animationcan be used to present short animations within small sections of alarger still image, in this case perhaps displayed in a window pane oras a television screen seen faintly in the house through a window.

If all colors in a given image are referenced from very small swatches,then the entire image's viewing area will be very small. Narrow viewingangles for individual images or effects facilitate the presentation ofmultiple separate viewing areas, of entirely different images, and manyother interesting effects, such as animation and 3D imagery. As noted,to present 3D images, each eye is simply presented with a differentcolor, at each mirror/pixel, to thereby construct two separate images,one for each eye. The more color reflection sources, all things beingequal, the smaller the color sources and therefore the smaller theviewing areas of the images reflectively constructed. 3D images, in thatthey require twice as many color resources tend to be associated withnarrower viewing areas. When a given effect requires viewing angles thatare so narrow as to strain the viewer's ability to effectively maintaina stable gaze within the viewing area, then the viewing area may bestabilized by one of a number of different methods, one being simply theplacement of apertures, stable viewports through which to stably see theimages. When there are different characteristics to an image, effect oranimation from different positions within the viewing area, then theviewport can helpfully be notated to indicate the image attributes atthe various positions and the effect of movement in one direction oranother, within the viewing area.

The general display principles and variations described can all beconstructed by hand, mirror tile angle by mirror tile angle, though anybut the most simple displays would in practical circumstances rely uponcomputer and software assistance to perform the many iterations ofsimple math operations required.

DRAWINGS Figures

Basic Image Translation and Color Sources:

FIG. 1A shows a simple reflectively constructed image.

FIG. 1B shows individual mirrors angled so as to reference specificcolors, reflected to a single viewing location, to construct an image.

FIG. 1C shows that in place of discrete color swatch color sources, arealistic image and color patches therein can be used as an imageconstruction color source, thus effectively “translating” one image intoanother.

FIG. 1D shows that a single realistic image source can be simultaneously“translated” into two different reflective images in separate arrays,visible at one viewing location.

FIG. 1E shows two viewing locations for a single mirror array, each oneof said viewing locations being shown a different image.

FIG. 1F shows how two unique reverse projected images are apparent fromthe different perspectives of two viewers, A and B, looking at the samemirror array

FIG. 1G shows two methods for rearranging the colors of an image of acity scene into an image of a fish.

FIG. 1H shows the geometrical configuration of 2 mirror arrays and 5color reference maps.

FIG. 1I shows a laser and a flashlight technique for determining thecolor reflection source location for each mirror tile in an array, froma chosen viewing location.

FIG. 1J shows how reference graphic color swatches can be freelyrepositioned

FIG. 1K shows a mirror array viewer's own face being calibrated tobecome the source graphic for the image he will see in a small mirrorarray.

FIG. 1L shows a reflective array built to use the viewer's own face asthe color source to construct the image of another person's face.

FIG. 1M relates to the process of how an outdoor scene would be colorsensed by digital camera to identify flat areas of like color.

FIG. 1N shows rotatable angle cut pegs reflecting an RGB color source.

Movement:

FIG. 2A shows how viewer movement, whether on the X, Y or Z axis withrespect to the mirror array, results in a reciprocal reflection vectorchange.

FIG. 2B shows still image sequence transition effects from theperspective of a viewer moving along a path, shown from left to right infront of a mirror array.

FIG. 2C shows a passerby who sees a series of reflective arrays,arranged to display a sequence of images, using grey gradients as acolor source.

FIG. 2D shows a pivoting array, in which a viewer is watching ananimation.

Mirror Tile Shape:

FIG. 3A shows a selection of mirror tile element size and shape options.

FIG. 3B shows how mirror tile element shape and size can be customizedto the content of a specific display image.

Viewer Positioning:

FIG. 4A shows how the distance from the reflective array, of the colorreflection source and of the viewer, affects the angle variation acrossa display for reflecting given color swatches.

FIG. 4B shows how different sections of a given array will, due toparallax, “see” a different reflective environment.

FIG. 4C shows how the size of the color reference correlates to the sizeof the viewing area, for that given color.

FIG. 4D shows how a given color reference list can contain colorswatches of different sizes, or subsets of specific like sizes.

FIG. 4E shows an image with progressively visible elements.

FIG. 4F shows a detailed analysis of an image with multiple overlappedprogressively displayed image elements.

FIG. 4G shows three examples of relative movement between array, viewerand color source.

Complex Displays:

FIG. 5A shows a display reflecting a pictorial pattern of radiant lighton the floor, while at the same time a full color image is presented toa viewer.

FIG. 5B is a detail view of a simple four-branch reference shape.

FIG. 5C shows how a 4-branch pixel/mirror color source encoding schemecan be tiled when printed.

3D Applications:

FIG. 6A shows that when a color reflection source is small, it can onlybe seen by one eye at a time, and that therefore two are needed, andthat those two color sources can be identical or different.

FIG. 6B shows how when a horizontal gradient color reflection source isused, each eye perceives a slightly different color.

Focal Compression:

FIG. 7A illustrates concave, focusing mirror tiles and thecorrespondingly smaller reference graphics swatch sizes thus enabled.

FIG. 7B shows in A1 and A2 a concave mirror tile surface compared to aflat mirror tile surface. B1 and B2 show an entire array focusedwholesale, by a large concave mirror.

Re-Reflection:

FIG. 8A shows how a secondary reflector can be incorporated into a colorreference field to allow additional color reference graphics to bemounted in an area that would not otherwise be directly reflectable fromthe mirror array.

FIG. 8B shows how a mirror behind the viewer can re-reflect reflectionvectors back toward a color reference source mounted near or integralwith the mirror array.

Miscellaneous:

FIG. 9A shows a simple example of refractive elements being used inplace of reflective elements.

FIG. 9B shows how a mirror can target swatch borders to mix colors,giving a similar effect to reflecting sections of a color gradient.

FIG. 9C shows individual mirror tile color references in a “+” pattern.

FIG. 9D shows an example of a mirror array set up to selectively inverta horizontal section of an image, using a line by line inversiontechnique.

Animation Stripe Details:

FIG. 10A illustrates the same animation mirror tile reference colorstripe progressively more compressed.

FIG. 10B illustrates how each segment of an animations pixel/mirrorreflection swatch stripe corresponds to a single animation frame.

FIG. 10C shows an embodiment utilizing a mirror arrays embedded in amoving sidewalk handrail, and source graphics mounted on the ceiling andwall adjacent to the sidewalk.

FIG. 10D illustrates a simplified case of a static mounted animatedsource graphic and a schematic of a corresponding 4×4 mirror array.

FIG. 10E shows in schematic that when a long animation branches, all theindividual reference stripes branch, and can be overlapped according tocertain methods.

Computer-Based Graphics:

FIG. 11A shows a live computer display used as a reflection referencegraphic for a 3D images display.

FIG. 11B shows a viewer tracking system in which a video camera allows acomputer to track a viewer's position and responsively adjust a videoprojection of source graphics.

Structures and Manufacturing:

FIG. 12A illustrates a simple machine that crawls along a mirror arrayto adjust the angle setting of the individual mirrors, thusprogressively changing the overall display image.

FIG. 12B shows a method of constructing a static array of triangularmirror tiles whose angle settings are screw-adjustable.

FIG. 12C shows two alternate methods of constructing an array from metalmirror tabs, whose angles are set by bending their necks.

FIG. 12D is a schematic of a typical “computer”, as referred to in thisdocument.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION

FIG. 1A: A Small Two-Color Reflectively Constructed Image

Referring now to the drawings, in FIG. 1A is shown a reflective array100 in which each reflective element 110A and 110B reflects toward aviewing position 300 a reflection source color 210A or 210B. Eachreflective element 110A or 110B can, by the art of the setting of itsreflection angle, present to the viewer 300 either one of the twoavailable reflectable colors 210A and 210B and thus the shown reflectivearray 100 can present images constructed of two colors, in this case theletter “T”. Additional reflectable colors can optionally be incorporatedinto more complex displays, allowing for images of greater colorfidelity. Likewise, larger reflection arrays with more reflectionelements can present more detailed, higher-resolution images.

FIG. 1B: A Four-Color Reflectively Constructed Image

In FIG. 1B is shown a more detailed reflective array 100, with a muchlarger plurality of reflective elements 110 than in FIG. 1A, each one ofwhich reflects one of four available reflectable reference colors 200.In the circular enlarged section is shown details of seven of the mirrortile array's mirror tiles, also called reflective elements 110, thefirst two reflecting green, the next one reflecting blue, and so on, asapparent to a viewer in the position as shown. The angle settingmechanism 620 allows any reflective element to show any of the fouravailable colors, as a function of the adjustable angle setting.

When the source colors are primaries or mixable colors, in general,adjacent mirrors can be treated as sub-pixels in a larger picture colorelement, analogously to how a pixel in a common computer display consistof pixels with red, green and blue sub-components, where thosecomponents are mixed a varying respective brightnesses to produce a fullgamut of colors. In this depicted mirror array display a bold colorgraphic of solid blues, reds, blacks, etc. could, it may be easy to see,be constructed, by angling large sections of mirrors towards thoserespective source colors. Alternatively, by grouping these mirrors tomix colors in mirror groupings, a wide gamut can be represented, thoughlighter shades would not be possible, due to the lack of a whitereflection source. Mirror tile-based sub-pixel color mixing can befree-form and arbitrarily complex, as distinct from the rigid RGB,3-component color grid of a typical computer display. If the mirrorswere small enough in a display such as depicted, the color mixing couldbe very subtle and support very high color fidelity.

FIG. 1C: Image Translation.

In FIG. 1C is shown a realistic existing image 202, which by virtue ofthe small and large patches of flat color therein is used as a colorreflection source, in place of simple color swatches, as in FIG. 1B,behind the viewer 310. The mirror angles in the reflective array 100 areangled to translate or reflectively rearrange the source image 202colors into a completely different image, 920, as apparent to the viewer310. The “translated” presentation image is palette-limited to thosecolors present in the source image 202. In addition, the source colorpatches must, typically, be of sufficient size so as to reflectivelyfill a full mirror reflective element 110 with solid color, from theviewing perspective 310.

FIG. 1D: Dual Image Translation

In FIG. 1D is shown the same realistic source image color reference 202as shown in FIG. 1C—a house—but this time being used as a colorreflection 202 by two mirror reflective arrays, 100A and 100B, both ofwhich direct their reflection grid-translated images to the same viewer310, who sees two different apparent images 920A and 920B, an elephantand a car, reflectively translated from source image color reflection202, a house. Any number of different reflective arrays cansimultaneously translate a given image into multiple different otherimages.

FIG. 1E: One Array, Two Viewing Positions/Display Images

In FIG. 1E are shown two viewing positions 310A and 310B from whichdifferent display images 920A and 920B are visible in the samereflective array 100. Reflective array 100 was initially angle-set inorder to translate a house image 202A into a car image 920A, as apparentto viewer 310A. The mirror angle settings to translate a house into acar are, for other purposes, effectively a random selection of angles.The only way that the new display image 920B can be made apparent inreflection in a pre-set reflective array 100 such as this is for thatnew image's color reference 203B to be a print out of a backwardsprojection through the existing array of the desired display image 920B,an image of an ocean shore. That backwards projection when viewed in thearray from the backwards projection starting position, 310B, appears asthe ocean shore image, 920B.

In order for an existing mirror array angle setting to be used todisplay a second image from a new perspective and new source colorgraphic, each mirror tile in that array must be configured so as toreflect a different position in the original source image, or be set ata vector that will result in a different reflection position, on thesecond image. In one image more than one mirror may refer to the samereflection color, a correspondence not shared in the second image.Therefore, when two mirrors need to reflect the same color, they need toreflect it from a different area of the first image, or at a vectorthat, by crossing the vector of the first reference to that same source,will result in a different reflection source in the second image, fromthe second viewing perspective. Two mirrors that don't in fact reflectthe same point in the first image may, due to the changed geometry of asecond viewing position and source image, reflect the same point. Ifthey did, an incorrect color reference would be imposed on thepixel/mirror of the second image. If there were many such unintendedindividual mirror tile color source overlaps, forcing one or the othertile to reference an incorrect color, a kind of interference pattern ormultiple reference conflict noise will result, degrading the 2nd (and3rd and 4th, etc.) images decoded from an existing angle array. To avoidsuch conflicts the exact angle pattern set for the first image wouldideally be set at the same time as the additional parallel imagepresentations.

Even images which reflect the same point in a reflection source colorgraphic multiple times can be reused to present other images, since even1,000 vectors that converge at a certain distance from the color sourcegraphic, can be configured not converge at a slightly differentdistance. Management of color reflection vector overlap and coincidencefrom one display image to the next, is ideally, if not necessarily,handled by software.

FIG. 1F: Different Perspectives, Different Images

In FIG. 1F we see again that a single mirror array, 100, can displaydifferent images to viewers at different viewing positions. Viewer 310A,when looking at mirror array 100, sees thousands of individual tinymirror tile color reflections drawn from source color map 203A, whichtogether form the image of a mouse on a tree 920A. Viewer 310B, whenlooking at mirror tile array 100 sees, in reflection, source graphic203B decoded into image 920B, an elephant. Viewer 320C sees nothing inthe reflective array 100, except white, since from her perspective onlya white ceiling and white wall behind her is reflected in the array. Inthis gallery, there are two viewing positions, for this array, asindicated by two viewing position indicator arcs on the floor, labeled350A and 350B.

When the viewing position of a given display is very narrow, as might bethe case in this depicted scenario, a more accurate view positioning cuemay be necessary. A pair of armatures that extended from the wall andidentified a specific point in space, from which to see the display,might be helpful or necessary. Other types of positioning cues could besmall direction-indicating mirror displays, with arrow and othergraphics as their sole content, said arrows displaying in one directionor another or one intensity or another to cue viewer movement into andtowards proper viewing position for an associated larger display.

In some mirror array situations a positioning indicator is necessary, insome cases optional and in some cases unnecessary. When the viewingposition is small, it is more likely that the location of the positionneed be indicated. In some instance the display may be designed so thatthe proper viewing position is best discovered fortuitously. In somecases the viewing position may be directed toward a entry doorway, orother traffic area, and designed to fill it, so that the image cannot bemissed. In other cases the viewing position may be constrained andcustomized to restaurant seating, booth by booth, to the driver of apassing car, so that the display image is made apparent and obviouswhere needed, and invisible otherwise.

When it is necessary or desirable to indicate the viewing position foran image, there are many image-extrinsic ways to do it: arrows,armatures, floor markings, signs, lights, etc. There are also variousways to indicate viewing position and movement options and movementintrinsic to the display. Though discussed elsewhere in this document,these intrinsic view positioning indicators include differential shadingof the content of the image, by offsetting the mirror angling in certainportions of the display, so that the edges, for example, of a displaybegin to fade first—lose color targeting—to cue the viewer to make aposition correction. Another technique is include arrows in the display,that only appear as a viewer or his eye position begins to drift outsideof ideal viewing position.

FIG. 1G: An Image Physically Rearranged . . .

An image can be physically rearranged into another images, by convertingit into color tiles, from which to then construct a new image. Thismethod can be emulated by mirror tiles, reflectively, as illustrated inthe following comparison:

A) The process begins with a photograph of a colorful city scene,containing a rough approximation of all colors and shades, though manyonly in small patches.

B) Several copies of this photograph are cut into small squares.

C) The pure color pieces of the diced photograph are sorted into apalette of thousands of different colors and shades, in preparation foruse as mosaic tiles.

D) The reverse side of each tile (shown magnified) identifies theposition in the photograph from which it was cut.

E) These mosaic tiles are used to construct an image of a fish, which isthen hung on a wall opposite the original photograph “A”.

An Image Reflectively Rearranged . . .

F) All fish image colored mosaic tiles (cut from the city scene photo)are overlain with mirror tiles. Each mirror tile therefore inherits thephoto location notation that is printed on the reverse of each colortile from the photograph. Since this mosaic mirror hangs opposite thecity scene photograph, from a certain perspective that photograph can beseen roughly reflected in the mirror tiles.

G) One by one (and very laboriously, by hand) each mirror tile 110within reflective array 100 is angled so that it reflects, toward agiven viewing position, the exact coordinates from which the associatedcolored tile was cut in the original photograph hanging opposite. Theoriginal fish image 920 thus again appears, though this time as areflection, and only apparent from a given viewing perspective.

FIG. 1H: In 2 Mirror Arrays 3 Viewers See 6 Different Images

Viewer 310A sees image-based color reference 202A reflected in bothreflective arrays, 100.1 and 100.2. To this viewing position, 310A,reflective arrays 100.1 and 100.2 display a fish image and a desertscene, respectively.

Due to the given geometry, the two overall image tile array reflectionsource areas don't converge for viewer 310B, as they do with respect toviewer 310A. Viewer 310B thus sees the two reverse-encoded colorreferences 203B.1 and 203B.2 in the same two reflective arrays 100.1 and100.2 in which viewer 310A sees a fish and a desert (both translatedfrom the one 202A factory scene). From perspective 310B reflectivearrays 100.1 and 100.2 display photographs of Abraham Lincoln andFrederick Douglas, respectively.

Viewer 310C sees reference images 230C.1 and 230C.2 in the two mirrorarrays. From this perspective mirror arrays 100.1 and 100.2 displayphotographs of a colorful marble and a planet in space, respectively.

This theoretical gallery is configured to illustrate one of the manypossible combinations of permutations of different mirror array imagetranslation species. Also illustrated is the fact that the abstractappearance of reflection source images of secondary display imagesviewed through a previously configured array will be abstract andrandom. This randomness, however, will not typically cover the entirereflection source graphic area. Therefore, there is some freedom tocomplete and shape and artistically modify even such deterministicallyconstrained reflection source graphics, to overlay artistic choice, asroughly suggested in the stylistically different patterns in sourceimages 203C.1, 203C.2, 203B.1 and 203B.2.

FIG. 1I: Flashlight Laser

In FIG. 1IA a method is shown for determining the overall extent of amirror array's reflection source graphics, on an adjacent wall, from agiven viewing location. A wide field light source, 916A, is simply shoneon the overall array, 100A, and the position of all the mirror tilereflections of that light source is revealed. In this case, they allfall within a rectangular area on the adjacent wall. In the illustratedscenario, this is a suitable location on which to place the desiredsource graphics 200A, and no adjustments to the viewing area or tileangles are required, as might otherwise be the case were the reflectionsource position in a convenient area to place color source graphics.

The next step is to place each source color in the position required foreach individual mirror tile. Three methods are shown for determining thereflection location of any given tile. In 1IB a laser pointer 915B isshone at the center of a mirror tile, and the center of the requiredsource graphic position is thus revealed by the reflection of the laser.This method does not readily show the entire area and shape of thetile's source graphic color source location, just the center.

Shown in 1IC is a method for revealing the full size and shape of mirrortile's source color location. In this method, a narrow-beam flashlightis shone at the mirror tile in question, and thus in reflection is seen,at 210C, the size and shape minimally required to fully color that tile,for the exact viewing position occupied by the shining light. To allowsome viewing position leeway, a source graphic would normally be of thegiven shape as so revealed, but of a larger size—typically enlarged asmuch as possible, to enlarge the viewing area as much as possible, butconstrained by the proximity of other tiles' reflection sourcelocations. 918C shows a mask with a tile-sized hole in it, to assist inshining flashlight 916C just at one tile at a time.

1ID shows a hybrid method to find tile reflection source locations, butwithout the added complication of needing to mask off adjacent tiles. Inthis method, a combination flashlight/laser, 917D, is directed at thedesired tile. In reflection, as shown in 210D, several tiles reflectionsource positions will be shown, but the correct one will be marked bythe laser pointer.

To discover the source color mounting surface for an animation, whenworking with an array set up for animation, then a light source would bepointed at the array from along the viewing path, and the resultingreflection vector sweep could be captured in a video camera pointed atthe surface swept by the reflection, and registered to the geometry ofthat given wall. The required print shape and placement location of eachmirror tile's source graphic could thereby be discovered, along with theprint size parameters.

A more useful and preferred method to set up mirror tile and tile arraysource graphics and site them, and print them, is for the entire processto be done in software, often in parallel with the design of the mirrorarray angle settings, and the design or choosing of the display image orimages. The above methods are presented to show that there are multiplealternative methods to set up the arrays and their associated graphics,in this case so as to reuse an existing array with unknown tile anglesettings. One computer-based method would be to scan a computer armcontrolled laser across a mirror array, tile by tile, while at the sametime a camera photographed the reflection source position, and loggedeach mirror tile's reflection position.

FIG. 1J: Reference Graphic Mutability

A) To construct the fish image in FIG. 1G, only several different colorsfrom the city scene photograph were used. For the blue water background,for example, there are only a few dozen shades of blue, used over andover again, to produce a background gradient from light to dark blue andthe shafts of blue light from above. These blues are reflected mostlyfrom specific portions of the sky in the photograph, but also partlyfrom a blue car. There is, in contrast to the prevalent blues, only onetiny red spot on the fish, and the mirror tile at that position is theonly portion of the image that reflects red from the photograph, (andthis red happens to be in an awning above a store window). The fish isprimarily yellow, though there are just a couple of small sections ofyellow in the photograph. There are therefore many mirror tiles thatmake up the fish all reflecting different portions of one or the otherof those few yellow color sources, to derive the various shades ofyellow necessary to construct the fish. If all sections of the cityscene photograph in previous FIG. 1G, that are not reflected by anymirror are removed, just a few patches of the photograph remain, asshown in 210A.

B) Many of the blues and yellows in the fish are identical, but are notreflected from the same coordinates in the photograph, though they couldbe. These duplicate color references 210A are consolidated, so that thetotal number of photograph coordinates reflectively referenced by themirror tiles is reduced, as shown in 206B. All tiles that were angledtoward the removed coordinates are re-angled so that they will reflectthe consolidated instance of the necessary color.

C) The remaining minimal set of color references necessary to constructthe fish can be freely rearranged, as long as the referencing mirrorangles are adjusted accordingly. Shown in 206C, the color swatches arearranged in a column.

D) Once the referenced color swatches are vertically separated, they canbe widened, as in 221D, thus widening the area from which the reflectedimage, the fish, can be viewed.

FIG. 1K: Viewer's Own Face Used as a Color Reflection Source

In FIG. 1KA a face is being color source mapped, 200A, with areas ofcolor and brightness being identified and angle located with respect tostable facial features, such as pupils, nostrils, etc. Several images ofthe face will be mapped, during different facial expressions, toidentify how certain color areas change during facial expression change.Those that change from bright to dark, from dark to bright, from onecolor to another color, etc., will be mapped and identified, to becomepart of a time-aware facial color zones map. This color map will bereferenced in the design of this user's desired reflection image.

If, for example, the viewer opted to be seen in this self-referencingreflection as a clown, then color sources not already present in hisface must be made available. These colors, bright white, red, blue,etc., could be printed on an eye patch, 200, which would be worn whileviewing mirror array, 111, a custom-fabricated static mirror arraydesigned from this viewer's facial coloring, his choice of displayimage. The eye patch has other advantages in simplifying theconstruction of a self-referencing facial array, in that it resolvesotherwise complicated binocular reflection issues. Tracking and settingup a color reflection map of the viewer's face is much simpler from thesingle viewing perspective of just one of his eyes, as compared to doingit for both eyes.

FIG. 1L: Famous Person Face Morphing

In one embodiment of a self-referencing facial image transformationarray, the prospective viewer of his own facial color map 205.1 and205.2, array will be asked to choose whose face he wishes to see inreflection in mirror reflective array 100.1 and 100.2, which is to becustom fabricated for him. Using the time-aware palette of his facialcolors, a display image 920.1 and 920.2 will be reflection translatedfrom the users' own face, his face used as the color source. When heviews the custom mirror reflective array 100.1 and 100.2, he will see aface not his own—perhaps the face of Albert Einstein, if that is thedisplay face he chooses. Einstein's facial likeness, as translated bythe array, having been designed based on the time-aware palette derivedfrom the viewers own face, will smile when the viewer ofEinstein-in-reflection smiles—if a smile is the specific expression thatthe viewer will also have chosen to be implemented in this custom facialtranslation array.

It is not possible to accurately map multiple viewer expressions toreflected facial expressions, but the user can choose at least oneexpression mapping to optimize (a smile, in this example). The basicprinciple for the mapping is that a comparison is drawn, mirror tile bymirror tile, between the user input reflection source expressions andthe desired resulting display images. A comparison and mapping is made,specifically, between a) the list of areas on the user's face thatchange from light to dark, or dark to light, or undergo any specificobserved color changes, or no change at all, during the mappedexpression change, and b) the colors and color changes needed,mirror/pixel by mirror/pixel, to thus produce the desired display faceexpression change.

“A” on 205.1 and 205.2 might be an area that does not change colorbetween smile and a face at rest, for this person. “B” might be an area,near the eye brow, that changes from black (eyebrow color) to lightbeige (temple color) and “C” an area that changes from middle pink tobeige. These areas would be mirror reflection mapped to become areas onthe display face that exhibited these color changes during the chosendisplay face expression change.

Note that 205.1 “A”, “B” and “C”, color zones on the input face, map todifferent areas on the output face. “A”, for example, on the input face,during expression change, does not change in color, because the foreheaddoes not wrinkle, on this person's face when he smiles. Therefore, “A”,in the Einstein output image will, perhaps, use “A” as the color sourcefor parts of Einstein's cheek, a portion of his face that likewise doesnot change color when he smiles. “B” on the input face, above the eye,changes from light to dark during a smile, and “C” the reverse. Mirrortiles that underly areas on Einstein's face that undergo these colorchanges, when he, smiles will reflect their colors from these areas.More than dark to bright and bright to dark shading changes will betracked in the time aware palette of the user's face, and in the timeaware palette of the Einstein face smile transition, because a subtlepalette of many such changes will need to be compared and mapped torecognizably reproduce the facial expression change mapping.

Accurate viewer positioning is critical when viewing such a display.There are many possible methods for aiding viewer positioning. One is toprovide small targeting armatures extending from the display, dualsights like gun sights, one on the left and one on the right, pointingto the viewer, which both line up when positioning is correct.

Generic facial translations are possible, not customized to a givenviewer. Such translations would be less accurate, but would benonetheless entertaining. They could be optimized for certain viewertypes, like children or other groups with certain facial likenesses,upon which translation effects can be based. Such generic translationscould be collected in books of interactive face translations. Themanufacturing technologies applicable for this class of embodimentswould be perhaps a stamping or other mass-production method,customizable to a shaped mirror fabricating technique, producingsmall-scale readily distributable mirror array in rigid thin sheets.

FIG. 1M: Identifying Reflectable Color Zones

Scene 201A is digitally imaged from the point of view of the mirrorarray. This image is image processed to determine and list the areas offlat colors and their angle location in the scene. This list thenprovides the angle data necessary to set the mirrors in the tile arrayto be sited at this location, and access any of these colors. The colorlist would, as simplified in 201B, list 1: light green; 2: blue; 3: darkbrown; 4: dark green, etc., and also minimally provide angle positiondata for the center of each of these identified color patches.Additional typical information would be the size of each patch, theshape and other parameters. For use when composing images using thispalette, the color list would be sortable and displayable based uponthese many parameters, for many display effect purposes, discussedelsewhere. The “flat” colors shown as sensed in this scene, includingfor example the entire sky, constitute an oversimplification. Inreality, the sky is perceptibly close to flat color blue near thezenith, but is more of a changing gradient at the horizon, and thuswould not register as a flat color except at perhaps the top of thisimage.

FIG. 1N Rotatable Angle Cut Round Pegs Reflecting an RGB Color Source.

The round pegs in this embodiment are grouped to combine their colorreflections from component colors (red, green and blue in this case) toform a full gamut of colors. One gradient each of red, green and blue isprinted and mounted to the side of the display. Peg angles for eachcolor peg differ, so that their reflective surfaces will reflect towardthe viewer only one of the component color stripes, which are located inangle accessible strata, as shown. The pegs are not necessarily all ofthe same diameter. They can be varied in size in correlation with theneeds of different display images, or for creative reasons, for example.The RGB scheme is also not rigid. In sections of an image that displayas pure middle blue, only pegs of the blue variety, those that areangle-cut so as to be able to reflect the blue color source gradient,can be used.

FIG. 2A: Viewer Movement Direction, in Reflection

A) When the viewer 330A moves laterally in relation to the reflectivearray 110A, the positions reflected by each tile, likewise, movelaterally, Left or Right.

B) When the viewer 330B moves vertically in relation to the reflectivearray 100B, the positions reflected by each tile, likewise, movevertically, Up or Down.

C) When the viewer 330C moves toward or away from the reflective array100C, the positions reflected by each tile, more complicatedly, moveradially, Away from or Toward a common center point.

Graphics array graphic elements viewed in reflection in a mirror arraychange in position in response to viewer position as illustrated inthese simple vector examples. Complex repositioning for thousands ofreflection vectors is only possible in software, but the architect ofreflective array displays should understand the general reciprocaldirectional relationship of viewer position and reflection sourcegraphic position.

FIG. 2B: Still Image Sequence Transition Effects

Reflection color reference sources 230A-230E consist of horizontallyelongated color reference swatches for five successive images, eachswatch fading in from black and then out to black, from the point ofview of a viewer moving through viewing positions 330A-330E movinglaterally between the mirror reflective array 100 and the referencegraphics. In this sequence of images each image is a full color image.Each source color is a horizontal stripe, supported by the fact thateach mirror tile 110 is aimed at a different height, allowing the sourcecolor swatch for each to be horizontally extended, as shown. To invokethe fade-through-black effect, the beginnings and ends of each sourcecolor stripe are darkened, as shown.

FIG. 2C: Sequential Frames Presenting a Related Series of Images to aMoving Viewer.

In 2CA is shown a series of independent mirror reflective array 100images, all using, a vertical greyscale gradient, as their colorreference source 204A. Viewer 330A is in the progression of sequentialviewing positions 340A, for sequential frames. As shown the progressingviewing positions 340A slightly overlap, creating continuity in theoverall presentation to, in this case, a pedestrian 330A walking throughthis series of viewing positions 340A.

2CB is identical to 2CA except that the color source 204B is ahorizontal gradient, instead of vertical. Because it uses a horizontalgradient, images in 2CB are lighter from the perspective of the viewer330B upon first entering the viewing area 340B. The image is only attrue brightness at the center of the viewing area, after which itdarkens. Each image fades in from white and then out to black, incascading sequence. Alternating panels could, for a slightly differenteffect, use alternating grey gradients, with reversed gradients, so thatodd number panel images fade from dark to bright, and even number panelsfade from bright to dark.

These two gradient effects are shown to illustrate two related simplecases. Typical reference graphic designs will more commonly combinethese two gradient effects and others, with other source graphic effectsfor much more elaborate effects.

In both 2CA and 2CB a secondary (and tertiary, etc.) display ispossible, shown here in 2CB as a mountain range stretched across alldisplays and visible as a single large image by viewer 310B. This imageis based on a wide color reflection source that would be mountedopposite the gradient shown on the right.

FIG. 2D: Pivoting Array and Animation

FIG. 2D shows a viewer, 310, on a bench, which is in the viewingposition of an animation that displays in a slowly pivoting array, 100,on the opposite wall. The reference colors 209 are stripes on a longsection of wall above the viewer. Each mirror tiles sweeps out a uniquelatitude on the wall, wherein is printed the animation pixel history ofthe animation being viewed in reflection.

FIG. 3A: Mirror Tile Shape and Size are Freely Variable

Shown are a few examples of standard mirror tile shapes (“A” and “D”)and a selection of specialty mirror tile shapes. Each example is a smalldetail section of a larger mirror tile array. “H” example is a shapepattern where smaller mirror tiles are concentrated in an image's areasof greater detail. “F” is an example of a pattern where mirror tileshapes vary with the colors and shapes in the underlying image.

FIG. 3B: Mirror Tiles Shape Matched to Display Image Content

Illustrated in FIG. 3B are mirror tiles reflective elements 110 designedin conjunction with the reflective array 100 display image. For artisticeffect, or to make an image read more clearly by concentrating smalltiles at areas of image detail, or for many other technical or userpreference reasons, mirror tiles can be freely size and shape customizedto match, enhance, complement or otherwise interact with display imagecontent, 221 and 222 for example, with respect to sea and sky.

FIG. 4A: Color Source Distance Affects Angle Variation

Mirror tile angle, when referencing the same color, varies greatly orminimally, across the display, depending on proximity to the display:

A) When a viewer, 310A, near a display views a nearby reflectionreference color 200A, the color targeting angles vary greatly, from onemirror tile to the next, across the reflective array 100A, as shown bythe wide range angle “A”.

B) When a relatively more distant viewer, 310B, views a relatively moredistant reflection reference color 200B, the color targeting angles varyonly a small amount, from one mirror tile to the next, across the array100B, as shown by the narrow range angle “B”.FIG. 4B: Ambient Color Environment Mapping

In FIG. 4C the mirror tile reflective array 100 is divided into 9quadrants to illustrate how parallax will, for some reflectableenvironments, present different reflectable color sources 201 to mirrortiles on different section of the array. Looking at the array, we cansee, in 920C, that from the perspective of mirror tiles at the bottomright, the smaller of the two trees in the reflectable environment isvisible behind and to the left of the larger tree. In 920B we can seethat, by contrast, from the perspective of tiles on the bottom leftsection of the array, the smaller tree is visible behind and to theright of the larger tree. Finally, as shown in 920A, from theperspective of mirror tiles at the top center, the smaller tree is notvisible at all. Therefore, the list of available colors in a givenreflectable environment will vary with respect to different mirror tilesacross a display, in certain cases. One method to test for thissituation, and accurately compile color lists and angle locations ofcolors in the list, is to photograph the reflectable scene from severalpoints 914 across the display, and determine the reflectable colors ateach position. In many cases it will be sufficiently accurate to take 9photographs of the reflectable environment and then interpolate anycolor/angle map differences across the display. These 9 readings mightbe taken at the 4 corners, plus the 4 center edge points, plus thecenter. In scenes with many objects arrayed and distributed near and farin all 3 dimensions, many partly obscuring others, then more numerousscene sensing images will have to be gathered from points across thedisplay. In reflectable environments that consist entirely of a distanttableau, with little or no parallax across the display array, then asingle image will be provide usable color/angle information for theentire array.

FIG. 4C: Color Source Size Determines Viewing Area Size

Different image viewing situations may require different viewing areasizes, 340. Sometimes a small viewing area is required and sometimes alarge viewing area is required. When composing a view image based onavailable ambient colors, it is desirable to be able to sort the list ofavailable colors by size, since the size of the reflectable source colorareas determines the size of the area to view the resulting displayimage. To see the color reference sources 222A reflected throughreflective array 100A the viewer has a small viewing location, 340A. Tosee color reference sources 222B reflected through reflective array100B, the viewer has a larger viewing location 340B.

FIG. 4D: Color reference subsets

Three views of one color reference environment:

A) All flat color sources 222A;

B) Wide-view sources only 222B;

C) Narrow-view sources only 222C.

A comprehensive color reference survey will register many attributes ofthe locally arrayed colored objects beyond simply their position anddistance. Color reference size correlates to the size of the viewingarea of the resulting image. Therefore, when contemplating building awide viewing angle image, narrow angle color sources, 222C, can not beused. 222B shows only the 4 large color sources in this particular colorenvironment, a very limited palette, though still useful, especially ifthese colors are complementary primaries from which many colors can bemixed. 222A, the full selection of available colors could be used toconstruct images that did not require a wide viewing area. In manycases, however, as another consideration, it is desirable to constructimages from color sources with similar sizes, so that all elements ofthe constructed image share a similar viewing area boundary, and wouldnot partially degrade when some elements of the image are within viewingrange and others not. In such a case where many colors were needed andprogressive image degradation were not desired, then 222C would be thedesirable palette subset to use, in this particular color environment.

FIG. 4E: Multiple View Angles in a Progressively Revealed Image

The Venn diagram below the two image views is a map of the viewing areasof a progressively revealed image and, equally, an indication of thesmallest size color sources visible from those areas. From the smallerposition 340A the complete image 920A is visible including both the wideand narrow view color sources. From the portion of 340B outside of A,just part of the image is visible, just the wide view elements, 920B.

FIG. 4F: More Detailed Progressively Revealed Image

In FIG. 4G it is shown that a viewer at 3 progressive viewing positions,330A, 330B and 330C, sees 3 progressively different images in the mirrortile reflective array 100 display. At point 330A only the grass and thepine tree are visible. In the overall source colors 230 referred to bythe mirror tiles, those that make up the grass in the image stretch inswatches across the full reference image area, as shown in 210A. Thegrass will therefore be visible from throughout the entire overallviewing area. The source colors 210B, those that make up the pine tree,only stretch half way across the full reference graphics area, and thusto a viewer passing through the viewing area, the pine tree will only bevisible for half the time. At the end of the viewing area, a viewer atposition 330C will no longer see the pine tree, but will see new pictureelements constructed of reference color elements only visible from thisposition, in 210C.

FIG. 4G: Relative Movement Invokes, Controls Animation

In static arrays, at least one of three components in a mirror tiledisplay, viewer 330, mirror array 100 or reference graphics 230, mustmove in relation to the others in order for animation or image contentchange to be displayed to the viewer.

A) The viewer 330A moves along the viewing path while the array 100A andcolor reference source 230 remain stationary; B) The viewer 310B doesnot move, the color reference source 200B does not move, but the mirrorarray moves 100B; C) The viewer 310C and mirror array 100C do not move,but the color reference source 231C graphic moves;

In each case, A, B and C, the movement causes the reflection point ofeach mirror tile to move through the reference graphic.

FIG. 5A: Light Collage Plus Reverse Mapped Image

In FIG. 5A a reflective array 100 has been configured to reflect thelight shone by spotlight 904 into a pattern on the floor that forms animage of a fish, 920, built of areas of compound reflected light andareas unlit by reflection. Very brightly areas are established by thecombination of several mirrors directing their reflections to thoseareas. Medium bright areas are built by the reflections of a few mirrorscompounded. The relatively darker areas around and within the fish areunilluminated by any reflected rays. This array, 100, built specificallyto reflect radiant light to build up this light-collage image, is alsoused to present a reverse encoded scene of a church among some hills920.

The method for reverse encoding an arbitrary image into a colorreference source 203 graphic that will display the image to a viewer310, is discussed elsewhere, also referred to as establishing abi-directional mapping. The method for configuring a mirror reflectivearray 100 to cast reflections so as to build up a grey-scale image ofrelative brightnesses is, at its most rudimentary, to simply perform themirror angle settings by hand, mirror by mirror, perhaps following asketch set temporarily in the position of the final intended lightcollage image.

Alternatively, in place of relying on the high degree of artisticdiscretion required for the above method, an easier approach would be toplace at the intended image location a negative of said image. Then, atechnician—in place of an artist—could simply point reflective tiles atall the darkened and slightly darkened areas until the darkness iscompensated, and the template becomes indistinguishable from a flatshade of grey overall. The darkest areas of the negative will not becomesufficiently bright grey until illuminated by several mirrors. The justslightly darkened areas of the negative will disappear into thebackground shade with the illumination of just one mirror's reflection.Once the negative is no longer visible, all of its darkened sectionsfully compensated into flat even color, it can be removed to reveal thelight collage image.

A similar method can be used to build full color cast images, providedred, green and blue, or other primary color scheme light sources, byfollowing a similar procedure. This procedure requires that the red,green and blue color channels—or color channels as used in the givenimage—are provided in negative form, as above. Each negative is laid inplace in turn, and lit with reflections from its respective light sourceuntil, as above, the negative is turned into a flat wash of even shade.When the next color channel's mirrors are to be set, the first lightsource should be turned off, and the negative image lightingcompensation step should be performed. In a three-primary-color image,every third mirror is dedicated to one of the primary colors. In a fivesource color image, every fifth mirror is dedicated to one of theprimary color channels, and so on. The reflection setting process isrepeated for each color channel and then all lights are turned on, toreveal the full color image.

FIG. 5B: Detail View of a Simple Four-Branch Reference Shape

A mirror tile array in which all mirror tiles refer to cross or “plussign” shaped color reference source a single swatch example as shown,221, will have an equivalently shaped viewing area. One effect possiblewith such a reference shape is to divided these swatches into colorzones or separate image zones, to construct present different images tothose corresponding parts of the viewing area. One could present aprimary image at the center of the viewing area, by placing that image'smirror tiles' reference colors at the center, “A”, and the source colorsfor variations to that image on each of the four branches “B”, “C”, “D”and “E”. To view these alternative images the viewer, when viewing “A”,would either move slightly right or left, up or down.

In one scenario “A” could contain the colors that contribute to theimage of a front view of an object, zone “B” could contain the colorsthat contribute to the bottom view of the object, accessible by theviewer by slightly lowering his viewing position. The side views of theobject are encoded in the left and right zones “C” and “D” of eachmirror's reflection source, and the top view in the remaining zone “E”.

FIG. 5C: Tiling of Four-Branch Color References

This color reference swatch shape tiles space-efficiently. Theserepresentations are idealized, since in actual usage each mirror tilecolor reference shown here will be referred to from a slightly differentangle, from mirror tiles across the referring display. Each referenceswatch, each “plus sign”, will thus be slightly distorted, therebyupsetting the perfect packing pattern shown here. This shape,nonetheless, makes efficient use of reference graphic space. The overalltiling pattern will be warped when mounted on a wall that is obliquelyangled from the point of view of the mirror array, as in 221A, or whenmounted on a curved wall, as shown in 221B, as shown in some of therepresentations.

FIG. 6A: Binocular Reference Swatches

When a color reflection source is small, it can only be seen by one eyeat a time. Therefore two color reflection sources are needed. When eacheye requires its own reflection source, each eye can be shown adifferent color for each mirror tile/pixel, thereby allowingpresentation of a different image for each eye, thus supporting truebinocular 3D, and other binocular effects. A: When a reference swatch isclose to, or less than, the size of average eye separation distance, asin the case of this one-inch-square swatch, only one eye can see it inreflection at a time. B: To show the same color in reflection to botheyes at the same time, as seen in a small mirror, two swatches arenecessary, one for each eye. C: Since every mirror tile in a display canhave a separate color reference for each eye, two entirely differentimages can be presented to each eye. This allows true 3D stereo pairsand many other binocular vision effects

FIG. 6B: Horizontal Gradient Binocular Averaging

An entire greyscale image can be referenced solely from the singlegradient 204. R1 and L1 show the reflection points of one mirror tile,one for each eye, right and left. R2 and L2 show the reflection pointsfor a mirror tile set to a lighter shade of grey. These are just two ofseveral thousand mirror tile color references in a full mirror tiledisplay, each targeting a different point (or pair of points, that is)on this reference gradient, as necessary to color, or shade, the givenmirror tile the necessary shade of grey to construct the given image. Aviewer's movement to the left or right when looking at a displayreferencing this gradient will result in a darkening or lightening ofthe presentation image. If the reference gradient were reversed, theoverall image would be changed from a positive to a negative, aninteresting and quick color palette manipulation effect, one among many.Various alterations of this gradient can be placed above and below thisone to allow the viewer's vertical movements or movements toward andaway from the display to manipulate the image in various ways, such asto turn it to a 2-color image, a false color image and many more complexalternatives.

FIG. 7A: Mirror Tile Reference Graphics Focally Compressed

A) A2 and A3 show five frames of a mirror tile's animation colorreference source 210A compressed horizontally, as would be enabled byfocusing the mirror tiles that reference this graphic, as in C, below

B) B2 and B3 show five frames of a mirror tile's animation colorreference source 210B compressed both vertically and horizontally, aswould be enabled as shown in D, below.

C) C2 and C3 show 1 frame of a mirror tile's animation color referencesource, 210C, reduced in width by virtue of one-axis focal compression,using a concave mirror tile surface 901C.

D) D2 and D3 show the same frame of a mirror tile's color referencesource 221 as shown in C, this time subject to two-axis focalcompression, using a concave mirror tile surfaces as 901D.

FIG. 7B: Mirror Tile-Level and Array-Level Focal Compression

A) In this magnified view A1 shows a standard mirror tile 111A1,reflecting a color swatch 222A1 that has to be, in a simplifiedgeometrical relation, approximately as large as the mirror tile. A2shows that by focusing the reflective reference, the referenced colorswatch 222A2 can be much smaller than the mirror tile 111A2. The size ofthe reference graphics for the overall display is thus similarly sizereduced.B) B1 shows a viewer 310B1 looking at a mirror array that colorreferences 200B1 through a typical mirror tile array 100B1 for a stillimage. B2 shows a viewer 310B2 seeing an image in the same mirror tilearray 100B2 with a concave mirror 901 introduced between the mirrorarray 100B2 and a focally reduced color reflection source 240B2.

When reflection color sources are reduced in size the incidentillumination upon them must be increased proportionally to their sizereduction, to maintain brightness levels in any reflection constructedimages drawn from them.

FIG. 8A: Re-Referenced Graphics

In a typical mirror tile reflective array display each mirror tile, 110,references a color reference graphic 200A in the line-of-sight of themirror array 100. In cases where, for one example, there is not enoughwall space to display all necessary color reference source graphics onthe directly reflectable surfaces, some mirror tiles' sources colors canbe reflected twice, allowing them to be referred to from a wider areathan directly referenced graphics. A plain mirror 902 incorporated intothe primary color reference source 200A, reflects supplemental colorreference source 200B information back the viewer 310.

FIG. 8B: Referenced Graphics in Mirror Array Frame

A self-contained mirror tile reflective array, 100, in which all colorreference source, 200, graphics are mounted in a single unit with themirror array can greatly simplify set up of a display. All that isrequired is a mirror 902 mounted opposite the display, at a certaindistance to reflect the image to the viewer 310. A relatively simpletemplate based on this arrangement could be produced by non-specialists,if they were provided with, in one embodiment, a standardized mirrorarray with an associated graphic transform and printer output presets,with appropriate registration marks built in. An end user could inputhis own graphic, the transform would be applied by the provided softwareand the resulting graphics printed according with the provided printtemplate. The end user would mount the graphics and have is own custommirror translation. His only geometrical calculation would be to sitethe re-reflection mirror and the array exactly parallel and at theproper distance. In a related system the user could pre-measure the siteand the template and transform could be custom calculated and providedfor his specific site.

FIG. 9A: A Simple Refractive Display

FIG. 9A shows a refractive array display, 910A, a window filled withsmall, square and slightly refractive glass tiles, their backs slightlyangled from their fronts, in a series of accurate graduation steps ofincreasing refraction. The tiles are all clear—uncolored, potentiallymade using high index glass, though not necessarily. By redirectingexterior color reference sources 201A1, 201A2, 201A3, 201A4, theyconstruct an image as apparent to viewers 310A from within the window'sroom. This refractive array 910A uses four colors; green derived from atree, grey derived from a concrete building, brown derived from a brickbuilding and blue derived from the sky, to construct an image of aharbor of blue water, green trees and brown-hulled ships with greysails.

Shown in 911B are cross sections of the square refractive tiles, showingtiles with different degrees of refractivity. The refractivity of arefractive array tile is analogous to the mirror angle in a reflectivearray—a given angle is required to bring a given color to a given tilelocation, as specified the given scene's color survey, and on that basisa tile of the necessary refractivity and direction of refractivity ischosen. Shown in 910C is an oblique view of refractive array, thevarious clear glass tiles visible from the side, showing their variousangles and orientations.

Refractive arrays can present images from multiple perspectives, usingtechniques as used for mirror arrays, that is by placing source colorsas needed to construct images. Another method, applicable to bothreflective and refractive arrays, is to take advantage of the targetingleeway for colors, when available, to allow a second image translationto be configured in terms of the choices in color targeting of a firstimage. For example, when reflecting or refracting blue for a given tile,when constructing a first image, if the blue color source is a widelake, then for the purposes of that first image that tile may optionallybe set at any angle within in a wide range. One setting within thatrange might be an angle that supports the display of a second image froma second perspective. When a given image is constructed with a greatdeal of such “play” in all the settings, a second image may readily beset up by taking artful advantage of this play. In the case of arefractive window display, the second image may be an image displayedfrom the opposite direction, viewable to those outside the building, andbased upon colors inside the building. Secondary images in refractivedisplays that are based on the option of placing elaborate and detailedcolor sources inside of rooms containing out-looking refractive displaysgive a wide creative range to such images, but it is not always possibleto place elaborate color source graphic patterns in any given roomcontaining an out-looking refractive array. It is possible, though, asanother alternative, to establish elaborate or interesting secondaryindoor-directed refractive displays, by using point light sources as theindoor “color” or brightness sources for in-looking refractive arrays.These point light sources can be arrayed on ceilings unobtrusively in anormal office environment, for example, but be complexly organized andarranged, to serve specific image generation needs, especially fornight-time versions of secondary refractive displays.

FIG. 9B: Targeting Color Borders to Mix Colors

FIG. 9B shows targeting of swatch borders to mix colors. When tworeference colors, red and yellow, “A”, or black and white, “D”, forexample, are contiguous, a mirror tile targeted partway between the twotiles will display a mix of the two colors, perceptibly the same, at acertain size, as mixing the two colors as if they were paint. In onecase it is shown that red+yellow=orange, as apparent to a viewer of thegiven mirror tile, or collection of mirror tiles so mixed. In anothercase it is shown that black+white=grey, as apparent to a viewer. It isalso shown that the level of orange or grey varies in proportion to theamount of red vs. yellow or black vs. white that is apparent inreflection, as determined by the exact targeting of the reflectionbetween the two bordering colors.

A) Two reference colors, red and yellow, by direct reflection.

B) Three reference colors, red, yellow and orange, orange being theresult of mixing red and yellow, by targeting between the colorreflection sources.

C) Eight shades of grey (including 100% and 0% black), by direct colorreference targeting.

D) Eight shades of grey, two of them by direct reference (black andwhite) and the remainder by mixing black and white, by reflectiontargeting various color reference positions (2 through 7) between blackand white.

Color mixing by accurately targeting the border between two or morecolors can greatly increase the available palette, but is typically onlyapplicable when the viewing position is precise and stable. Border mixedcolors can be wide areas, not requiring strict accuracy in onedimension, at least, along the border between the mixed colors, whenthat border is long.

FIG. 9C: Mirror Tile Halo Viewing Positioning Cues: Directional Colors

A) Shown are the 25 reflection reference color swatches for a givenimage. The color palette of this image has been reduced to 25 colors bya compression process similar to GIF image compression. Thousands ofmirror tiles reference these 25 colors to build a large full colorimage, with the typical slight apparent color fidelity reductionapparent in GIF images, resulting in a comparably very compact referencegraphic. One purpose of such radical palette reduction compression is tofree up reference graphic space for special effects, reference colorhalos, 208B, in this case, used as viewer positioning cues.B) The 25 reference colors have been separated from each other,providing space around each swatch for buffer colors, colors that willdisplay to a viewer entering or leaving the viewing area. The mirrortile buffer colors in this case are configured to provide a visual cue,a color halo, to aid the viewer in positioning himself for optimum imageviewing. The grey shades to each side of each mirror tile represent 4different vivid colors, in this particular scheme. When the viewer movesto the left, and begins to exit the viewing area in that direction, theentire image will start to tinge one color, and if he moves in theopposite direction, another color tinge will result, in each instanceallowing the viewer to make a quick subtle corrective movement tomaintain his true color view of the display image. Edge mirror tiles maybe configured to tint first, by extending their reference color's haloesinward slightly more than other tiles' haloes, thus providing a fineadjustment cue, before the entire image tints upon more complete viewerdisengagement with the viewing area.FIG. 9D: Row Transposition Inversion, an Image Distortion Effect

In a different family of angled mirror array effects, sailboats, 201, ona lake are reflected partially inverted, 920—only their sailsinverted—from a certain viewing position 310A. While the boats' sailsare inverted, the boats' hulls and the lake below and clouds above arenot inverted.

No specific elements of the image is actually inverted. Each tilereflection in the reflective array 100A is a normal upright reflection.The mirrors are, that is, all flat. For a certain portion of the image,however, the order of the reflection vectors of rows of reflectiveelement 206 mirror tiles is reversed, creating the apparent inversion920. For a detailed example, 206B shows an upright triangle, and 206Cshows a row transposition inversion, of the triangle. At this coarseresolution the inversion is very rough, and each individual row isreadily recognizable as still upright, though the overall inversionillusion is already apparent.

FIG. 10A: Ten Frames of One Pixel's Reference, Under Three CompressionLevels

FIG. 10A is a detail view of an animation color reflection referencegraphic showing the encoding of just one pixel, over the color historyof 10 animation frames.

A) All other factors being equal, with respect to instances B and C, theviewer of graphic 250A is moving faster, resulting in a longer referencegraphic that encodes no more image information than B or C, but uses 2or 4 times the area.

B) If the viewer of the same image as encoded in A were to be movinghalf as fast through the viewing path, the viewing speed-reducedanimation reflection source 250B graphics would need to be encoded inhalf the space, a more efficient use of reference graphic space, thoughtstill not ideal.C) A viewer moving half again as fast could be presented the sameanimation with each mirror tile referencing encoded pixel colorreference source 250C graphics half again as long as in B, a furtherviewing speed-reduction, closer to an ideal minimal use of referencegraphic display area.

The speed of the viewer is not the only parameter that can be adjustedin order to optimize animation reference graphic print area size.Another method is to optimize the geometry to adjust the referencegraphic reflection indexing speed. For example, if a reference graphicat distance X encodes as shown in A above, then moving the referencegraphic much closer to the mirror grid will result in the same displayanimation using version C above. Another method to optimize referencegraphic geometry is to focus the reflections, and thus compress them inone or two dimensions, as outlined in FIG. 7A.

FIG. 10B: Animation Frames Become Mirror Tile Reference Graphics

“A” contains a detail view of the top left-most reflective element, 110,as it changes its reflected content over 5 consecutive frames, 100, ofan animation.

“B” shows these same 5 pixels when printed as a color reflection source,230B, which is reflected as shown in “A”

FIG. 10C: Moving Sidewalk Rail Animation

A series of small mirror tile reflective arrays 130, perhaps of a typethat are stamped out of foil using a standardized reflection mapping,are embedded in the top of a rubber moving handrail of a moving sidewalkin an airport terminal. This particular standard reflection mapping isone which maps the two dimensional grid of mirrors to a one dimensionalline of reference points. A pedestrian, 310, holding the handrail cansee in reflection in one of these arrays, just ahead of her hand, a tinyslice of the long color reference source 230 stripes mounted on theceiling. As the sidewalk moves, this visible slice of the ceilingreference graphic moves down the hallway, along the length of the longreference graphic, thereby playing back in reflection a long animation,visible to the pedestrian. Each of the hundreds of tiny reflectiveelements in each identical hand-rail mounted array, 130, is angled toreflect a different one of the hundreds stripes the long thin reflectioncolor reference source 230 shown in simplified schematic on the ceiling(or ceiling and upper wall, with respect to another display on theopposite handrail). Each stripe encodes the animation history of themirror/pixel for which it provides a reflection source, contributingthereby to the long slow animation viewable by the pedestrian viewer 310for the duration of her moving sidewalk ride, provided she maintains herposition within the narrow animation viewing position, steadied by herhand holding the handrail.

FIG. 10D: Moving Sidewalk Rail Animation Source Graphic Detail

In this simplified example of an animating array, the mirror array 100is a small matrix of tiles, each reflecting to one position in a line ofreflection color source stripes, 209. Each of the 16 shown stripes holdsone mirror/pixels history over the course of an animation. In thisanimation example a series of 5 simple geometric patterns are displayed,one in the shape of a “1” at the top. This is one type of animation thatwould be viewable as illustrated in FIG. 10C.

FIG. 10E: Branched Animation Reference Graphic Packing Method

Animation color sources can branch into separate animations, viewableupon either of two paths. To support this branching, all color sourcestripes must branch. Such branched shapes take up much more space thansimple one-dimensional stripes. They cannot be closely packed withoutoverlapping each other. One way they can be overlapped without changingthe color in one or the other reference, and thereby compromisingdisplay content, is to overlap them at points of near or coincidentcolor. A) The shape of a single mirror tile's reference stripe for abranched animation. B) Several overlapping mirror tile references (outof thousands) shown overlapping only where colors in both referencescoincide. The 3 circles show the 3 overlap points for these 4 mirrortile references. The number of potential color coincidences, i.e.overlap points, can be greatly increased decreasing the color palette,as is possible using certain color compression methods.

FIG. 11A: Computerized Reference Graphics

FIG. 11A shows a mirror tile array, 100, on a table top using a livecomputer display as a reference graphic, each mirror tile reflecting twosmall reference swatches in the computer display, one for each eye, thussupporting true 3D. The computer display optionally incorporates viewertracking, so that the reference graphics can be optimally minimized andmoved as necessary to track viewer eye position movements and positionwith respect to the display. The mirror array, in some such embodiments,is constructed of real time actuated tiles, supporting substantialadditional features and functionality.

In the illustration the reflection vectors of three mirror tiles areillustrated, showing the location on screen of the source colors thatthe viewer sees in those three mirror tiles. The viewer has no way ofknowing the screen location of any given mirror tile. When displaying acoherent image in the mirror tile array 100, the source graphic, in thiscase a computer screen, shows an unrecognizable abstractly shapedreference graphic, a function of the display image and the mirror tilearray mirror pattern. Since each eye sees individually differentreferences for each mirror tile, each eye sees, potentially, andentirely different images. 3D images and other stereo vision effects arethus possible. Animated and still image 3D images and effects can bepresented in static reference graphic mirror tile displays. Indistinction, computer-based mirror tile array 100 reference graphics canbe interactive and intelligent, presenting games, environments andvarious other computer interactive fare, enhanced with the added benefitof mirror tile true-binocular 3D.

FIG. 11B: Viewer Tracking Used to Adjust Projected Reference Color

A digital video camera 731 directed at the viewer 330 of a static-angledtile array 100 allows a computer 733 to track the eye position of aviewer 330, feeding that information to a video projector 732 whichprojects the live computer controlled reference source colors 231. Thecomputer updates the reference color map positioning it projects tocompensate for any movement by the viewer 330, and thereby maintain astable and persistent image or effect, if desired, as apparent to theviewer.

FIG. 12A: Array Crawling Display Updater

“A” shows a single mirror tile reflective element 110 built from anangle-cut rod, with a polished flat mirror surface at the top. The notchshown on the reflective surface is not inherent to the mirror tiledesign, but to the illustration, as an indicator in front view of therotation of each given mirror tile, and thus the direction from which itreflects, and thus the apparent color. In an array built of rotatableangle mirror elements, the palette is typically array in an arc aroundthe perimeter of the array, sometimes in the very frame of the array.“B” shows a reflective array of mirror tiles as shown in “A”, theirdefault rotation, as shown in the first few rows, pointing theirreflective surfaces down, reflecting whatever color might be referencedthere. A simple device, 621, that crawls over the array and resets eachmirror tile's rotation, thus updates each tile's color reference andthus, gradually, updates the entire display image.FIG. 12B: Screw-Elevated Triangular Tiles

A triangularly shaped reflective element 110A can efficiently be angleadjusted by an angle adjustment mechanism at each of its 3 corners. Inthis design a fine-thread screw angle enabler 622 is accommodated by athreaded sleeve at the rear of each angle tile 110B, said screw 903embedded but freely turnable and slightly pivotable in a back mountingplate 600 to which all triangular mirror tiles 110B are attached. Theelevation adjustments thus made possible for each mirror tile allow eachtile to be aimed a certain number of degrees in any direction. Though anarray of thousands of tiles could be screw-adjusted by hand, a computercontrolled custom designed tool would be the desired method to adjust alarge display. A display could be mounted so that these rear-accessiblescrews were accessible by such a tool, perhaps operated by robot arm,for example, to machine adjust each tile automatically at relativelyhigh speed, under computer direction of the necessary screw setposition, to establish the correct angle for each mirror tile. Themirrored front of such triangular tiles would typically not be as farapart from each other as shown in 110C. Just a small separation betweentiles would be necessary, to accommodate the slight angle actuations.

FIG. 12C: Bendable Neck Mirrored Tabs

Shown in FIG. 12C are two related methods for mounting mirror-surfacedreflective element tabs, 111, with bendable metal necks between ahangable section and a reflective body section. The bendable neck can bebent to the required angle position to reflect a specified angle-locatedsource color. In “A”, the reflective element 111A tabs are designed tohang free, and wave in a breeze, which would cause them to lose theirspecified angle, and thus the display image to change or disappear. Onceback at resting position, the image would reappear. In that embodimentthe necks might only be twisted left or right, as shown from to topview. In “B” the reflective element 111B tabs are not free hanging butare mounted to a groove in a wall or mounting structure, or by someother solid fastening. As a result of their solid mounting, this type oftab can be neck-bent not just left and right but also up and down, asshown in the top view.

FIG. 12D: Computer Block Diagram

FIG. 12D is a block diagram that illustrates a computer system uponwhich different embodiments and elements of embodiments may beimplemented. The computer system includes a bus or other communicationmechanism for communicating information, and a processor coupled withthe bus for processing information. The computer system also includes amain memory, such as a random access memory (RAM) or other dynamicstorage device, coupled to the bus for storing information andinstructions to be executed by processor. Main memory also may be usedfor storing temporary variables or other intermediate information duringexecution of instructions to be executed by the processor. The computersystem further includes a read only memory (ROM) or other static storagedevice coupled to the bus for storing static information andinstructions for the processor. A storage device, such as a magneticdisk or optical disk, is provided and coupled to bus for storinginformation and instructions.

The computer system may be coupled to a display, such as a flat screenmonitor or a digital projector, for displaying information to a computeruser or with an individual interacting with certain computer-integratedembodiments. Input devices, keyboards and machine vision-based datainput and computer interaction devices can be coupled to the bus forcommunicating information and command selections to processor.

Embodiments are related to the use of a computer system for executingsome of the techniques described herein. According to some embodiments,those techniques are performed by the computer system in response toprocessor executing one or more sequences of one or more instructionscontained in main memory or in response to video camera input or otherinput from other elements of the particular embodiment. Suchinstructions and input may be read into main memory from anothermachine-readable medium, such as storage device. Execution of thesequences of instructions contained in main memory causes processor toperform the process steps described herein. Embodiments of the inventionare not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry andsoftware. The computer system can send and receive messages and data,including program code, through links to other digital devices. Thereceived code may be executed by the processor as it is received, and/orstored in the storage device, or other non-volatile storage for laterexecution.

In the present specification, embodiments have been described withreference to numerous specific details that may vary from implementationto implementation. No limitation, element, property, feature, advantageor attribute that is not expressly recited in a claim should limit thescope of such claim in any way. The specification and drawings are to beregarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Regarding Color Source Tracking:

In place of actually tracking color source objects as a series ofrecognized changing objects, which is somewhat complex to do, the systemsimply frequently updates the entire reflection environment, by readinga digital image feed of the scene and identifying colorpatches—effectively thus tracking all the elements in the environment,such as a red truck moving through the scene, which would be temporarilyuseful as a red reflection source, and thus incorporated as a reflectionsource, as needed, for as long as it is present. The truck would not berecognized as a truck, or even recognized by the system as a persistentobject. It would just be used as a color reflection source as long atits big red splotch were apparent, and no longer used once it were gone.Constantly sensing and updating the color environment is much simplertechnically, compared to actually identifying hundreds of objects andindividually tracking them, and is functionally equivalent for the needsof the mirror display system, live actuated-with-color-tracking version.

Regarding Viewer Position Tracking:

Viewers can be identified and tracked using visual processing algorithmssimilar to those used by digital cameras for smile detection, and thoseused in body tracking systems. Identifying a viewer or viewers andupdating their positions frequently and accurately, and continuallytracking the reflection targets toward a chosen specific viewer or groupof viewers, is the basis for elaborate visual effects with a wide rangeof novel and unusual features. These features include free-formcombination across a single display of still images, interactiveeffects, viewer-reflective interactive effects, true 3D images,animations and private presentation of all of the above, among othernoteworthy characteristics. Viewer tracking and real-time array angleactuation enables a very high degree of synergy among these and othermirror array display features explained elsewhere herein.

Though low-resolution versions of the technique of the present inventionhave been possible for centuries, high resolution versions, quicklydesigned and fabricated, have only become recently possible, as thedesign and construction process involves precise and highly iteratedmeasurements and calculations, digital imaging, 3D modeling andraytracing systems, and computer driven manufacturing systems.

Additional Illustrative Examples, Introducing Additional TechnicalDetails:

In a photograph of a colorful city scene with cars, pedestrians, storefronts and window displays, to a certain rough accuracy all colors andshades are present, in greater or smaller abundance. If copies of thisphotograph are cut into tiny pieces, any image to a certain roughaccuracy can be constructed with these pieces, mosaic style. Dependingupon the size of the mosaic pieces this image can be crude, orphotorealistic.

Picture such a mosaic, a colorful abstract image of a fish, constructedof tiles cut from this city scene photograph. Picture this fish imagehanging opposite the original city scene photograph. This fish is mostlyyellow, though there are only a few small patches of yellow in the cityscene. Many copies of the city scene photo were cut up to obtain enoughyellow pieces to build the fish image mosaic. Assume that all mosaicpieces are cut in an accurate square grid pattern, and are numbered withtheir row and column location in the city scene photograph.

Now, assume that we replace each tiny paper fleck of the dicedphotograph, used as a mosaic piece to form the fish, with a mirroredtile. We now have a faceted mirror, but no more fish. Assume that westand at a certain position from which we can see the city scenereflected in the faceted mirror, as they hang opposite each other. Welook in the faceted mirror and we see a slightly, randomly distortedcityscape.

Now, and this is the key step, assume that we very precisely angle eachtile in the mirror mosaic so that it (each tile) reflects, from where weare standing, the exact position in the photograph from where thattile's tiny photo section was cut. The mosaic image of the fish is nowrecovered, this time as an array of tiny reflections. From ourparticular viewing location, the cityscape is “reflectively translated”into the fish image.

Let's now follow the same procedure again, this time constructing amosaic image of a car on a desert highway, from flecks of the samecityscape photograph, and hang that mosaic next to the mirror fish.Let's again convert each photo fleck into a mirror tile, angle-targetingeach mirror tile to the correct position in the reflective referencephoto, the cityscape, as before. At the same position from which we seethe fish reflection, the second mosaic reflects an entirely differentimage from the same original. The first mirror grid reflectivelytranslates the cityscape into a fish, and the second mirror gridreflectively translates it into a desert highway scene.

Additional images can similarly be derived from the city scene fromadditional mirror arrays. Instead of adding more arrays, we can also usethese two existing mirror arrays to present different images, fromalternate viewing positions. From only one position do these mirrorarrays reflect the city scene photograph, and thus display a fish and adesert scene. From other positions these two arrays simply reflect blankspaces on the wall. If we hang further copies of the city scene at theseblank wall locations they will not exactly reflect as a fish or a desertscene, because the geometry will be distorted, and most mirror tileswill reflect a slightly offset position in the city photograph. Toretain faithful reflections of the fish and the desert scene the cityscene reflection source image would need to be distorted to compensatefor the changed geometry. However, more interesting than providingadditional fish and desert scene images from the two mirror arrays,might be to derive entirely new images from these arrays, to bepresented at the additional viewing positions. How is this done? Takefor example a photograph of Abraham Lincoln. To display Abraham Lincolnto a new viewing position in one of the existing mirror arrays aspecifically derived graphic pattern must be placed at the blank area ofthe wall that is reflected by the array from that given viewingposition. That graphic pattern is derived, specifically, by projectingthe image of Abraham Lincoln backwards through the given mirror array.This results in an entirely abstract image, unrecognizable except whenviewed in the mirror array. The translation pattern that changes thecity scene into a fish is a very specific pattern, a very specificarrangement of mirror tile angles. If we want to change the output imagefrom a fish we must change the input image from a city scene, and thatinput image will not be recognizable, since that image is the functionof a given output image (Abraham Lincoln, a satellite image of a riverdelta, a colorful glass marble) multiplied, in a sense, by the existingmirror array. The mirror array was originally a function of the colorarrangement in the fish as compared to the color arrangement of the cityscene. Though this resulting array may not be random in a perfectmathematical sense, for current purposes it is essentially random, andwhen used as an encode pattern for new images to be viewed in thatarray, the resulting encoded reference images are, to the eye, randompatterns.

We now have a gallery with two mirror arrays on one wall and, on theopposite wall, one photo of a city scene, and several abstract images,the reverse encoded source images for a photo of Abraham Lincoln andseveral other images. Viewers stepping from one position to the nextfirst see in the reflection grid the fish and the desert scene. Thenthey see the additional images from the additional viewing positions.The additional images are entirely distinct and different, none arevisible from any position other than their assigned viewing position.

We've seen two illustrations of the general principle that any image canbe reflectively translated into any other image, provided the originalimage is a palette super-set of the reflectively constructed image (thefish and the desert scene). We've also seen several examples of how anyarbitrary reflection grid can be used to construct any given image,provided that this new graphic is produced with a reference graphic thatwas backward calculated, through that reflection grid, from this desireddisplay image.

Let's look now at some image effects that can be generated when thereflection reference colors are freely configurable at the same timethat the reflection grid mirror angles are also freely configurable,both taking their form from the needs of the desired image effect.Removing the constraints on the design of both the reflection referenceand the mirror grid allows a wealth of display effects otherwise notpossible. To explore one of these new effects, let's work with just theoriginal cityscape and the fish.

Assume that we remove all parts of the reference image (the cityscapephoto) that are not reflectively referenced to construct the image ofthe fish—those sections of the photographs not targeted by any mirrortiles—leaving just a few patches of the original photograph. Though mostparts of the photographs are missing, leaving just a skeleton ofpatches, the reflected fish image remains completely intact.

Note that although there are only a few small patches of yellow in thecity scene photograph, the fish is mostly yellow. When cutting up thecityscape it took many copies of the photograph to make enough yellowmosaic pieces to construct the fish. When extracting the same amount ofyellow using mirrors, however, there is no shortage, since any number ofthe mirror tiles can simultaneously reflect the same small yellowsections of the original image.

The correlation between each mirror tile and its assigned colorreference, and the reflection of that color back toward the viewingposition, are reflection vectors. This elementary discussion treats thereflection vector simply, omitting certain complications like the factthat there are really two vectors, one for each eye when dealing withnarrow-field reference color sources and we gloss over several othergeometric subtleties. What is introduced here is the general notion thatthe reflection vectors from viewer to mirror tile and mirror tile toreference color are based on easily computed geometry and this simplegeometry is at the center of this system and simple adjustments of thisgeometry are the basis for various image effects. Three elements in thissystem—viewer, mirror, source color pattern—form a single reflection, asingle V shape, at the individual mirror tile level, and a flock ofvariously angled Vs, at the image level.

For our next example we'll stretch both ends of all reflection vectorsfrom points into lines. The reference graphic swatches become lines orstripes and the viewing positions become paths. These paths can bevertical, lateral or any shape. If each reflection reference is extendedinto a lateral line then the viewing position is thus extendedlaterally. The viewing area shape and the reference graphic shape are,simply, reciprocal mirrors of each other.

If we change the color of each mirror's reflection source as it movesalong its path, that color change can be seen by the viewer of the imageas he or she moves in either direction along the viewing path. Forexample, the reference image stripes can be darkened gradually to black,and this darkening will be seen in the reflection as the viewer movesalong the viewing path. With this in mind, we can start to exploretime-based image effects. In order to do so, we'll first need to changethe geometry of our color reference graphics, to allow all tile colorreference sources to be extended into lines, but without those linescrossing and obscuring each other.

After all portions of the cityscape that are not reflectively referencedas source colors from which to construct the fish are removed from thecityscape image, all that remains is the fish image palette, thoughpossibly with duplicate colors. If we remove all duplicate colors, we'llneed to re-aim all mirror tiles that referenced the duplicates, to nowreference the single instances of those colors.

If we then stack these colors in a vertical column, in a series ofspectra, sorted by brightness, and then again re-aim all the tiles sothat they still retain their reflective reference target colors, thereflectively constructed image still remains intact.

Generally, we can move the fish's reflection reference colors anywhere,into any pattern, either contiguous or widely scattered, and retain thefish image, provided that we maintain each mirror tile/reflectionreference correlation, by angle adjustment of the mirror tile angles.

With our fish reference swatches oriented in a line, we can now changethe swatches from zero dimension to one dimension or from point to line(or from swatch to stripe). This makes our image viewable from any pointalong a line. The former viewing “position” will become viewing “area”or viewing “path”. To change the viewing spot to a path we just need tospread each color swatch into a horizontal stripe. Let's make thesereference stripes 6 feet wide.

Instead of a thin vertical stack of swatch patches we now have acolorful 6 foot wide vertical stripe, made of small horizontal swatchstripes, a series of partial vertical spectra of varying brightness.From the original viewing position we still see the fish reflection, butwe can now also move laterally through a long viewing path, and see thefish reflection from any point along that path.

If, however, we move our viewpoint up or down (by stooping slightly, orstretching upward), the image's overall hue will change, as eachreflection color will be replaced by its spectrum neighbor. By movingour head further vertical distances, up or down, we can more or lessradically alter the hue of the image. The purpose, in this example, ofsorting the reflective reference colors in a vertical spectrum was toset up this example of a viewer position interaction effect: verticalmovement controls image hue.

We have just expanded the viewing area along the x axis, the horizontal,but expansion of the viewing area is possible along three axes: X, Y andZ, or along any combination of the three. The reciprocal of a viewer's Yor X axis movement, reflected in the source image position, is a simplereversal: a higher viewing perspective corresponds to a lower positionedreference color position. A viewer movement to the left corresponds to arightward movement of the reference image position. Viewer movement onthe Z axis is a bit more complicated, including the fact that the pixelreflection positions move radially, rather than in parallel, in responseto Z axis viewer movement. However complex a given viewer movement, thismovement traces its reciprocal shape in the reflection reference.

When some or all pixels' color swatches are extended into elaboratestripes and other shapes, to allow them to be visible to viewers movingalong elaborate paths geometric allowance are necessary to provide roomfor these elongated graphics to be printed, without overlapping eachother. For example, when we have an image with 100,000 mirror tiles,each with its own reference swatch, and we want each of these referencegraphic to be converted from a swatch to a stripe, there will likely notbe sufficient room for such a large reference graphic. It would benecessary to, perhaps, compress the color palette of the image to, say,100 colors, and let all mirror tiles reference these 100 swatches. These100 swatches could then be converted to stripes. The geometric strategynecessary to change these 100 swatches into stripes could be to stackthem, since if they were all packed in a grid, there would be no way todraw most of them out into stripes.

For another example, when a viewer approaches a mirror display, thereflection vectors all move radially away from each other. For an imageto remain visible during this viewpoint change one option would be toarrange the reference colors in a circle, so that each swatch can extendoutward, following the radial movement of the reflection vectors as theviewing position moves along the Z axis (toward or away from the mirrorarray).

Our fish image's vertical reference color pattern consists of a stack of6 foot wide stripes, each stripe corresponding to one or more fish imagemirror tiles. Let's fade the stripes to black, from full color at thecenter of each stripe to full black at each end of each stripe. Thisresults, as apparent to a viewer moving laterally through the viewingarea, in a black reflected image gradually fading into a full color fishand then fading back out to black, a simple visual effect apparent onlyto a moving viewer. The speed of the viewer's movement along the viewingpath establishes the speed of the effect. As before, vertical viewermovement adjusts the hue of the fish but, now, in addition, lateralmovement scrubs the image along the time line of this fade-in, fade-outtransition.

Implementing image transitions on a series of images presented along agallery wall can lend a cinematic quality to the viewing of what remainstill images—an effect category subject to many variations. There aremany other and in some cases much more interesting ways to make use ofthe ability to vary an image over time. Instead of a simple fade-in fromblack we can, for example, present an animation, though this is a bitmore complex than a simple transition. Let's animate the car in ourdesert scene, let it speed along the highway.

To simplify the implementation of this effect, lets move our desertdisplay into a different environment, one where there are passersbymoving at a regular speed, with stable eye height in a spacious hallway(to provide ample space to display reference graphics). Let's thereforeput the desert car image mirror array on the wall of an airport terminalwalkway, our reference graphics on the opposite wall and our viewersonto a moving sidewalk between.

The reflection reference for the fish image required perhaps a few dozencolor swatches, the number of colors in the fish's palette, and thesefew dozen colors served as references for thousands of mirror pixels.Reduction of the required reference colors by first constraining thecolor palette and then consolidating the references is a form of“compression”. Compression is helpful, and often essential, to reducethe area required for the reference color graphics. Without compressionthe color reference required by a simple still image, like our fish,would generally be larger than the presentation image, unless theviewing area were severely constrained. With the benefit of compression,the reference color graphic can be much smaller than the fish image,allowing us to add the fade-to-black effect, which would not have beenpossible without compression. There are many compression methods thatcan be used to minimize the amount of space required for reflectionreference graphics.

Different compression methods apply in different situations. An array ofreference stripes for an animation does not compress in the same way asa series of reference swatches for a still image. In a full frameanimation, where each pixel changes color over time each pixel'sreference stripe will, likely, be unique, which limits the scope forconsolidating animation reference stripes as we previously consolidatedfish image swatches, where many swatches were duplicates of each other.Compression is essential, however, for our animated version of thedesert car scene, since an animation relies on reference stripes, notjust swatches, and each stripe must be 50 or 100 (or more) times thesize of a swatch (and larger still if we want a long animation, sincelength of animation correlates to length of stripe). Withoutcompression, we'd need unique reference stripes for several thousandmirror tiles and there typically won't be close to enough referenceimage display space for this in any display setting. Luckily, for ourdesert and car animation we can invoke a different compressiontechnique, a form of “delta” compression, combined withalready-described consolidation compression.

Delta compression involves identifying portions of an animation that donot change over a series of frames, and instead of repeatedly storingthe same image information again and again from frame to frame, simplycarrying forward the earlier frame, essentially treating the staticportions of animations as still images, reducing the overall amount ofdata necessary to encode the animations. Animations can also beoptimized for delta compression, imposing subtle image changes wherepossible to invoke more conformance from frame to frame.

Delta compression is possible in this instance because most of thepixels in our car-on-the-desert-highway animation don't change, sincethe movement of the car involves very few of the pixels in the overalldesert image. In other words, our animated image really is a stillimage, with just a few small animated sections. The non-animatedsections of the image consist of pixels that don't change color, andtherefore can be consolidated to perhaps 50 color stripes, using thesame compression strategy as used with the fish image. We'll have apalette of about 50 desert colors, and therefore need just 50 colorreference stripes to construct the static areas of the image. Eachsection of the image that does animate will need a dedicated reflectionreference for each and every pixel, in this instance about 550 stripesin all. These will be located on the opposite wall of the terminalhallway, from approximately 8 to 12 feet high. We thus have plenty ofspace to display an animation, but only thanks to the benefits ofcompression.

One additional issue to address is the fact that our animation will befocused. That is, all tile reflections will only be visible, from thinhorizontal viewing positions, since the reference graphics themselveswill be relatively thin horizontal stripes. The image viewing angle,though very wide, will be vertically narrow. We can vertically fattenthese stripes, as space permits, but our viewing angle will remainvertically small. Passersby who are too tall or short will not see thereflected display, since it will be too far above or below their line ofsight.

One of many available strategies to address this shortcoming is tostratify the display, split it into 6 different animations, each onedirected at a different viewing height. To prepare for this it would behelpful to slightly crop the top and bottom of our image. In our imagewe see the highway curve into view in the mid-ground and then disappearinto a vanishing point in the distance. The animated element is a carthat will drive into frame around the curve and then speed into thedistance down the highway, becoming a speck. The view of the car on thedesert highway is already wide and short, and now we'll crop out some ofthe sky, and some of the foreground, resulting in an even shorter aspectratio image, similar to a movie screen rectangle. We can now stack 4duplicates of our scene on top of each other. The lowest iteration ofthe scene will be reflected toward the shortest viewers and the highestone will be directed toward the tallest viewers (Though this correlationis arbitrary. Each of the 4 iterations of the scene can be directed atany height). Each instance of the animation will only be visible fromone of these narrow viewing heights, but most viewers (except the very,very short and the very, very tall) will be able to view at one oranother of these viewing bands, by stretching up taller or slightlylowering their heads.

As mentioned, this animation's reflection graphic will consist of twotypes of reference stripes; consolidated palette stripes, referenced bythe non-animating sections of the image, and one-to-one,pixel-to-stripe, references, for the animated sections. Thepalette-consolidated reference stripes, pertaining to the staticsections of the image, will be spectrum sorted as were the fishreference colors. This will allow vertical viewer movement to controlimage hue, as with the fish image. An out-of-hue version of the desertscene will be visible from above or below the target viewing heightranges. It will thus tend to be readily discoverable, due to viewers'natural small body movements, that these reflection displays areinteractive with regard to vertical movement hue adjustment. Once thisis noticed, it will readily be discovered that there is a correct-hueviewing height. Interactive hue adjustment will act as a viewer positionheight “tuning in” method. The reflections of the animated sections ofthe image will still have narrow viewing height tolerance, but withbrief experimentation, as encouraged by the interactive color effects,the animations will be discovered and easily watched in true color,through the most convenient horizontal viewing window for differentheight viewers.

Each of the 4 iterations of the car animation can be identical, butsince they are directed to different audiences it might be useful todifferentiate them. We can incorporate a different text message intoeach one, for example. For the animation directed to the lowest viewingheight, we can provide a message targeted at a younger audience. For themiddle height animations, we can present a message biased to women'sinterests. For the tallest viewing audience, we can provide a messagebiased toward men's interests.

We can also readily add custom graphical embellishments to each instanceof the animation. We already have a palette of about 50 colors to drawupon, and we can use this palette to freely rework the static sectionsof the image, doing anything from adding a grazing animal to thelandscape, a cabin, etc., as long as the new objects are constructedusing the existing palette colors. We can, equally, rework the entirelandscape, as long as we leave the animated highway sections unchangedand also work within the existing palette. We can optionally enhance theavailable palette, beyond the palette native to the original desertscene, allowing additional changes to the scenery. For example, if weadd a range of green reference colors to the opposite wall we'll be ableto add trees to the landscape. Whatever changes are made we can't, atthe same time, change the section of the scene where the car isanimated. All of the pixels involved in the animated sections of theimage are hard-wired, one-to-one pixel-to-stripe references, since eachpixel in the animated section is unique over time.

Since we've achieved good compression, and reduced the referencegraphics requirements by using delta compression in conjunction withpalette reference consolidation for the static sections of the graphic,we have made it possible to accommodate longer reference stripes,allowing the presentation of a much longer animation than otherwisewould have been possible. Our final animation is thus several secondslong, correlating nicely to the length of time between the mirror gridcoming into convenient view, remaining in view for several yards ofviewing time, and then passing out of view, the passerby on the movingsidewalk having comfortably watched the entire animation.

Angled Mirror Tile Compared to Pixel

Though a mirror tile shares the basic pixel nature of being a “pictureelement”, it is functionally different in several respect, beyond beinglit by reflected light instead of by emitted light. Those differencesbetween pixel and mirror tile include:

-   -   I. reflective: A pixel is active, emitting light, while a mirror        tile is passive, reflecting light, though it can optionally be        active in the sense of being dynamically targeted, motorized, or        can reference an active source such as an interactively or        otherwise dynamically controlled computer display. It can even        “shine” light, like a pixel, but only when, still, reflectively        referencing a light source, in a array partially or wholly based        on radiant light source reflection references.    -   II. not just pure color: A mirror tile's referenced color source        can be a pattern, static or moving, and that pattern can present        unusual pixel features such as lateral movement and other        texture source manifestations, especially when several        contiguous mirror tiles target patterned color sources, either        static or moving.    -   III. free form and varying parameters: Mirror tile pixels can be        of arbitrary shape and size, color space, number of        sub-pixels—and these parameters can vary freely within a given        display.    -   IV. RGB-based, or based on any other component color scheme: A        pixel in a computer display is typically composed of primary        color sub-pixels (RG and B), whose proportional intensity gives        the display's full color gamut. Any color can be a native        primary for a mirror tile, precluding the absolute need for        sub-pixels. In other words, the primary colors for a mirror tile        display can be 10,000 distinct colors, precluding the need to        mix colors using sub-pixels. Equally, mirror tile displays can        use sub-pixels based on any alternative to RGB, like CMYK, or        any other custom collection of colors optimized to mix the        shades necessary for a given display image.    -   V. Interactive: Mirror tile reflection sources can be the image        viewer him or herself. Coloration and even the shape of a        presentation image can be directly interactive in this way.    -   VI. display manipulated by viewer movement: The presentation        image can be a static image that does not change in response to        viewer movement, but there are also several types of animated        and active mirror tile displays that are animated or visually        adjustable in various ways and these image changes can be a        function of viewer movement. Typically image manipulation is        invoked by viewer movement along the presentation image's        viewing path, and this manipulation is most often the control of        image animation. Other image manipulation can be more subtle        than wholesale body movement on the part of the viewer. For        example, a display can be configured so that a simple turn of        the viewer's head, while maintaining gaze on the display, will        manipulate the image. (This is possible because the eyes are        closer with respect to a display when the head is turned, and a        display can be configured so that the differential between the        left and right eye images is changed then the distance between        the eyes is changed). In other embodiments the position and        shape of the viewers body in reflection, or the raised or        lowered or other positioning of his arms can reflect as dramatic        differences in or adjustments to the display.    -   VII. freely configurable viewing angle: Mirror tile viewing        angle is very configurable, to any shape and size. Viewing angle        can be very tight, or very wide and even broken into several        different view areas, each with its own viewing angle. Tight        viewing angle displays can be advantageous for privacy and        security applications, for example, and wide angle displays for        inclusiveness in viewing not possible with some other types of        image displays.    -   VIII. unconstrained size: Mirror tiles can be infinitesimally        small, supporting extremely high resolution images, and can also        be constructed of very large elements, at very large scale.

A key feature of a mirror tile is that its color is physically separatedfrom it. The angle of a mirror tile is, essentially, its color settingand that is all that ties it to its color. The mirror tile beingabstracted away from its chief attribute, its color, gives rise to oneof its chief abilities, the image transformations that can be performedby a mirror tile array, which can be compared to mathematical matrixtransformations, versatile and useful beyond specific image extractions,extending to general purpose image effects. The versatility of thepossible transformations multiplies further in specialty embodimentswhen mirror tiles reference further mirror tiles, or referenceprogrammatically controlled graphics, or are under mechanical control orare otherwise articulated.

There are a wide range of reflective pixel coloration attributes thathave no corollary in standard pixels. For example, mirror tiles thatreference moving sources can invoke an array of effects from movingsources that have no meaning in regard to typical pixels. For example,contiguous mirror tiles targeting the same moving textured color source(like the leaves of a tree), but with slightly offset angles, willpresent a wave effect, based on random movements of the reflected movingtexture.

While the pixels in an LCD display may have a viewing angle of perhaps66 degrees, the viewing angle of a mirror tile display can be less than1 degree (or over 150 degrees, or any angle in between). As noted above,there can be multiple separate images displayed at the same time, eachwith different viewing angles. This is all controlled by the size andpositioning of the reflection graphics, as the size and shape of thereflection source of a mirror tile or of a mirror tile display establishthe viewing angles of the images made of those mirror tiles.

“Reflective Construct”, “Reflection Translation Grid”, “ReflectionReference Graphic”

One generic phrase for images presented by mirror components is“reflective construct”. The mirror tile array might be referred to as a“reflection translation grid”, especially when it uses a specific imageas the color source for constructing another image, though also when anenvironmental array of colors is “translated” into any image or effect.Any color source array of any type can be referred to as a “reflectionreference”. These are three core functional elements of the presentinvention. “Reflective translation” refers to the action of an angledmirror array, as it takes as input a given color array and freelytranslates (moves from one x-y position to another) as its output anyelements of the input.

In the city scene example above, the city scene is “reflectivelytranslated” into a fish image. A reflection reference need not howeverbe a recognizable image. It can be an abstract graphic or physicalconstruction, or be no image at all. It can, for example, simply be anunconnected constellation of ambient colors, and textures, includingmoving textures and environmental shades that change over time, withthose changes incorporated into the constructed image so that sectionsof the constructed image can dynamically change over time in concertwith the environment. A daily changing color, moving from light toshadow over the course of a day, can become the reflection source for asimilarly changing element in a presentation image.

For certain displays, the reflection reference must be an abstractimage, such as when the reflection grid is already set and is thenre-purposed to display a new image, an image different from the one uponwhich the reflection grid was originally based. Given a preset grid,with no option to re-angle the tiles, all image configuration must bedone in the reference image. To obtain a reference image that willdisplay a photo of, for example, the album cover of “Dark Side of theMoon” (a prism splitting a light beam into a spectrum, on a blackbackground) through a pre-set reflection grid, that image (this albumcover) must be projected backwards through the given reflection grid,and the resulting pattern must then be mounted as the display imagereflection source. When a desired display image is backward projected inthis way, “encoded” in one sense, or bi-directionally mapped, through apre-set mirror array, that mirror array becomes the key to then decodethe encoded image. The mirror array-encoded version of this album coverimage will be an abstract mass of mostly black, along with splashes ofwhite and the various deeps hues of the spectrum scattered around.Looked at through the mirror array it will, of course, appear as theoriginal album cover image.

System Concepts

Composite Mirror Tiles and Mirror Tile Shape

Pixels in a computer display are typically a composite of RGB primarycolors, with each component's brightness at a proportion of its maximum,to mix all colors across the gamut. Reflective color pixels can also becomposite in this way, though with much more latitude with respect tocolor space. For example, a mirror tile pixel can be constructedaccording to any desired color space, whether RGB, CMYK (Cyan, Magenta,Yellow, Black) or any arbitrary or hybrid color spaces, with any numberof component pixels, provided simply that corresponding reflectionsources are provided. A reflection source for an RGB mirror tiledisplay, that provides all shades each of RG and B, could be simply 3gradients, one for each primary color. Same for a 4-component CMYKpixel. Same for any other primary color configuration. A standard RGBdisplay has ⅓ the resolution of an identical display that couldalternatively display full color with each pixel component. A mirrortile display that relies upon component mirror tiles, for one reason oranother, will in some cases suffer the same reduction of resolution. Inother cases, however, depending on manufacturing constraints, componentpixels can be grouped using geometries that don't reduce apparentresolution as much as would be the case with pixel components rigidlyconstrained to a grid. First, mirror tiles can often simply be made muchsmaller than pixels. Since there are no mechanical parts in a reflectivepixel they can in fact be almost arbitrarily miniaturized, limited onlyby the wavelength they are reflecting. Secondly, alternative pixel andsub-pixel shapes can maximize display sharpness, such as by using mirrortile shapes that conform to the details of the image. Aliasing ofdiagonal lines in traditional pixel displays can be avoided in manycases in mirror tile displays by orienting the mirrors at the same angleas the diagonal line. In addition, both the number of mirror tilesub-pixels and mirror tile size can be varied and optimized on a mirrortile by mirror tile basis across the display. For example, if a givenpixel is yellow in an RBG-based display, only the R and G sub-pixels arenecessary, though the math is somewhat complicated for how such apixel's size should be adjusted in relation to other pixels which mayhave different sub-pixels and shape and size variations. In general,there are distinct advantages in the malleability of mirror tile size,mirror tile shape and mirror tile component color scheme and the othercustomizable characteristics of mirror tile displays.

Mirror tile pixels can be any shape, including any regular shape or anyarbitrary combination of regular and irregular shapes. Typicalreflective tile array displays may use square mirror tile, formanufacturing convenience, or use triangular mirror tiles, for targetingconvenience when targeting is controlled by controlling the position ofeach corner of each mirror tile (three control points being minimallynecessary to establish each mirror tile angle when angling in anydirection), depending on the targeting mechanism. Mirror tiles can becustom designed based on the content of a given image with regard alsofor the different properties of different reflection source types(textured, solid color, gradient, etc.). Different mirror tile shapescan be used to enhance different image elements, in creative andsynergistic ways: wide and flat mirror tiles for a distant lake surface,tall and thin mirror tiles for a grass field, a concentration of varysmall mirror tiles for an area of detail—almost endless combinations ofshape, size and other mirror tile parameter combinations in relation todifferent image content. For best reflective performance and simplifiedgeometry and other reasons, front surface mirrors are the preferredmirror type.

Standardized Grid Angle Patterns

To derive a specific image from a pre-set graphics source, a custommirror array is required. If the graphics source is, instead,configurable, then the mirror array angle pattern can be any pre-setpattern, whether a pattern required by another graphicssource/presentation image combination or, a standardized angle pattern.There are several benefits to standardized angle pattern mirror tilearrays, including:

-   -   Regular mirror array patterns require that the source graphic        also conform to a regular pattern, which may be in some        instances a desirable form for the source graphics. When several        regular arrays and their regularized source patterns are seen in        sequence, a pattern will be evident, which could be        aesthetically desirable. A simple example basis for a regular        pattern is to divide the reference graphic area into eight equal        sections and allot the first eight mirror tiles in the image to        the first position of each of the eight reference image        sections. Allot the next eight mirror tiles to the last position        of each of the eight reference image sections. Allot the next        eight to the second position, allot the next eight to the second        to last, and repeat until each mirror tile is assigned. This        will result in a reference image pattern in the form of eight        roughly similar sections, with each section either        unrecognizable or characteristically distorted. Or, depending on        the image, the 8 sections may be recognizable, though        characteristically distorted, as may be desired for the given        display situation. Any of a multitude of mappings of mirror        array to graphic reference are possible, with many potential        purposes and possible visual effects.

The graphical characteristics of the color reference is subject to greatvariability, initially due to the interplay of the given mirror arrayfor which the graphic is encoded for display and the nature or contentof the graphic itself. If the goal in a given situation is to render thecolor reference unidentifiable as a color reference or unidentifiable asa reference for the given display image, it is possible to set up themirror array translation pattern so as to maximize the distortion andrearrangement of the display image. Some mirror array patterns willdistort one image, but leave another quite recognizable. For instance,the source image for a sky with clouds might be hard to disguise asbeing a source graphic for said image. The way to render itunrecognizable in source form might actually be to reverse encode itinto ordered blocks of white and grey and blue. Or, by virtue of aspecific mirror pattern, the image color elements could be encoded intorecognizable text: “these are not clouds”, written white on blue, with agrey text shadow. If the mirror array for the reference graphic encodeof the sky image were not to later be used to display other images, thenimage-specific high color compression could be used, in which just thefew dozen blues and greys necessary for this image will be printed asthe color reference, reducing the size of the color reference andrequiring many mirrors to share color reflection references with manyother mirrors. This sharing of color references by multiple mirrors is acomplication in reusing the array to display other images, since otherimages will not have the same shared mirror color patterns, won't havethe same areas of like color. The way around this is to set up thegeometry of any additional image display that uses this same mirrorarray in a different geometry between the viewer, array and colorreference, such that mirror reflection sources that coincided in theoriginal image display geometry do not also coincide in the secondinstance. This is easy to achieve on a case by case, mirror by mirrorbasis, by changing the distance and angle of the display elements. Iftwo mirror reflection vectors converge at the same color source from 10feet away, in the first display, they won't converge in the seconddisplay, which is t 14 feet away. But, to track all convergences ofmultiple mirrors among two or more arrays is very complex, and so wouldtypically be calculated by computer, by varying the several relevantparameters, primarily the geometric placement of the source graphics,the viewing position (if also an open variable in the given situation)and the mirror tile translation setup for each display.

-   -   A regular mirror array angle pattern can perform a useful        general purpose effect when it is reflecting images or scenery        other than the display's primary target. For example a regular        pattern might invoke generic wave-like distortions, from outside        the viewing area, due to their mirror angles varying slightly        according to a sine function, on top of the primary function to        translate each source presentation pixel according to some        pattern.    -   Regular mirror array patterns can be mass produced.    -   Regular mirror array patterns may be the only patterns able to        present certain effects, for example those that require that all        source mirror tiles line up in order to reference pixels in        specific regular order.    -   Regular patterns can be paired with easy-to-use image encoding        routines, making it easier to produce mirror tile displays.        Palette Constellation

Some mirror tile displays are based on a pre-existing environmentalarray of colors—the local ambient palette—and some are based on colorsdesigned and deployed as a custom source graphic to support a giveneffect. In all cases the mirror tile display source graphics are,generically, a constellation of colors, a spatial array of colors, eachcolor located at a unique angle coordinate, from the point of view ofthe mirror tile mirror array. The list of all colors that exist in thegiven location can be used as a reference for setting the angle of eachmirror, so as to reflect, to any given position, and given color.

This list, the basic reference for coloring, that is “angle-setting”, agiven array, minimally consists of a table of colors and their anglelocation. Other features or attributes of the colors in the list canalso be included, such as the time of day of the availability of eachgiven color, and many other changing characteristics. These otherfeatures are useful in composing different types of mirror array imagesand effects, which can take artistic or informational other advantage ofthe additional attributes, to enhance or interplay with the content ofthe given display.

The color angle of a given color, as listed in the palette, actuallyvaries with the position of the given mirror tile. A mirror tile in thetop right of an array will need a different angle setting in order toreference the same color as a mirror tile on the opposite side of thearray. The angle listed in the palette may be the angle from theperspective of a point at the center of the mirror array, or at thetop-left mirror tile, and from this baseline angle the angle applicableto all other mirror tiles would be derived. The angle variation acrossthe array will be greater or smaller in proportion to the distance ofthe given color source to the array, so the distance to the color sourcemust also be known in order to calculate the reference angle across thedisplay.

Ambient Palette

Distinct from the many engineered color reference varieties, which aredesigned and deployed in conjunction with a mirror array, there aremirror tile displays that rely upon no designed reference graphics.These arrays use as their reflection references the existing colors inthe given environment, the “ambient” colors. An ambient color is anycolor which is native to the surrounding environment and which isreflectable from the viewing location of a mirror array. The ambientpalette is compiled by sensing the available colors, usually withcalibrated camera equipment, and listing these colors and theirpositions in the environment. When designing an ambient colors mirrortile display for a given location the colors available for that displayare given in the ambient palette. Any desired display image must firstbe qualified as possible in the given environment, based on whether thenecessary colors are available in the ambient palette. Any image can beconstructed, as long as it can be color mapped to the available ambientcolor set. A given location and its characteristic available color setwill allow true color display of images that share the same color set. Acity setting will provide a color set suitable for presenting othersimilar city scenes and, may equally allow the presentation of arenaissance era portrait that utilizes a similar color set of browns,grays and blues. When necessary, or desired, to present an image withcolor requirements beyond those natively available, additional referencecolors can be deployed to enhance the existing ambient palette.

The first step in specifying graphics that will rely upon a givenambient palette, is to measure that palette, to register it, that is,and construct the local ambient palette, to determine the availablecolor set, and the angle position of each color. This information islater used to set the angles of the tiles in the mirror array, toproduce any display image to later be configured for that location.There are various techniques for doing sensing the available colors andthe angle locations. General purpose color position registration can bedone with a relatively simple digital camera setup, using a fisheye lensor lens wide enough to see in one image the full intended reflectionreference field. That camera's lens has to be calibrated to accuratelycorrelate all pixels to an angle with respect to the display to later beconfigured. When there is distance variation among the color sourcesthen multiple images from at least the corners of the mirror grid needto be taken, to register the change in angle of each color, and thepotential disappearance or obscuring of a color source, due to parallaxacross the display.

In an environment with any anticipated movement or gradual colorchanges, multiple sensing shots may need to be taken over time whenregistering the palette. Color patches that do not persist may not, withrespect to certain standard display types, be used as reference colors.More detailed palette listings can register such scenery changes, andgenerate specialty palette entries that include a color source's changeover different time periods. For example, if in a given color referencearea the color consistently changes between green and blue, this couldbe a useful color patch for many images. (Leaves on a tree sometimesobscuring the sky might provide a reference patch that would changecolor in this way). This color source angle location would be logged asa dynamic color, registered for its various dynamic qualities. One ofthose qualities would be its relatively high frequency of change. Anarea in an outdoor scene which for part of the day were in shadow andpart of the day were outside of shadow would also be registered as adynamic source, but with a much lower frequency of color change. One usefor shadow changing reference colors is the construction ofshadow-changing elements in a scene. There are numerous other possibleuses of this and other types of dynamic reference colors to lenddynamism and depth to otherwise still images, and tie the content of amirror tile image to changes in the local environment.

Wide Field Vs. Narrow Field Color Reference

When a given mirror tile is targeted to a small color source, then theviewing angle is small. A large color source gives a large viewingfield. A given image can be viewable from only a very narrow viewingarea, so narrow in fact that it is only feasible to view it through anaperture, or some other constraint. A display can be very wide field,using the entire sky for example, as a blue reference source, a widelawn of grass as the green source, and thus present a display viewablefrom a very wide viewing angle. Wide-angle indoor displays are equallyfeasible, for example by placing the reference colors very close to themirror grid in order to maximize viewing angle, or by resorting tolensing effects to optimize viewing angle and reference graphic sizerequirements.

In non-composite mirror tiles, the viewing field is set by the size andshape of each mirror tile's color reference shape. Individual mirrortiles and sections of an array can readily have different viewing fieldsizes. In a display using composite mirror tiles, the viewing field sizedoes not, generally, vary mirror tile by mirror tile since, generally,in a composite configuration all mirror tile's sub-components referencethe same primary color sources, and thus share the same viewing fieldsize parameters. A given display can use some direct color mirror tilesand some composite mirror tiles, combining them freely.

Multiple Viewing Angles, Images and Image Types in a Single Display

A single mirror tile display can include wide field color references insome parts of a given image along with narrow field references in otherparts of the image. For example, the source colors of differentbuildings in a scene can be targeted to a range of narrow and mid-sizedcolor sources, while the sky of the same scene could target a very widefield gradient source, resulting in an image that on approach appearsjust to be a sky, but in which on further approach some buildings wouldappear and on further approach additional buildings would appear, iftheir viewing angle were different and the default color, say blueperhaps, were present in the wider reference field when the buildingcolors were not present. The appearance of the reference graphic for asingle mirror tile in such an image might vaguely resemble a Venndiagram where a field of blue contained one or more sections of grays(bldg. colors). Other mirror tiles in the same image would containdifferent Venn-like patterns, corresponding to their pattern of changefrom different viewing positions. Single images can thus be complexlymodular and contain sections and elements that are visible or notdepending upon viewer location.

Single Display, Multiple Different Images

There can also be several different viewing areas in a given mirror tiledisplay, several coincident viewing positions from which differentviewers can see entirely different images while looking at the samemirror grid. Obviously, a standard mirror has this same property,allowing different viewers to see different images at the same time,from different viewing positions. Among the novel properties of a mirrortile display, by contrast with a standard mirror, is how the mirror tiledisplay can present entirely different reflected images to the differentviewers—a sunset, a cat, an x-ray, a tree, a cityscape, a blueprint—alldisplayed at the same time and without any of the viewers knowing whatany of the other viewers are seeing. These images can, in addition, bedisplayed at the same time that animations and other unique mirror tileeffects are displayed to other viewers.

Reference Color/Viewing Area Shape

The size of a color reference can be regular, an exact circle or square,which is typically the shape of the referring mirror tile, and istherefore a minimal shape for filling that mirror tile with color. Acolor reference can also be irregularly shaped, for many reasons, and inmany useful ways. For a simple example, wide but vertically thinreference graphics allow an image to be viewed from a wide lateralrange, but a limited vertical range. Similarly, for viewers descendingan escalator a diagonally extended reference graphics, and thus adiagonally extended viewing area, would be appropriate, to allow thedisplay to be viewed for the duration of the diagonally moving escalatorride. From an area within which viewers have freedom of movement in alldirections on a floor, a asterisk shaped reference source would allowviewers to move among an asterisk-shaped viewing area, so that they cansee image color changes, manipulations and effects alternatinglypresented as they move so that all mirror tile's reflection referencesmove among the various arms of the asterisk reference shape shared byall mirror tiles. Multidimensional effects can be implemented this way,or different animations can be encoded along the different arms of theasterisk-shaped viewing field. There is no way to describe all thepossible reasons and strategies for constraining or shaping the viewingarea, but the basic principles can be outlined. Obviously, the size ofthe available reference graphics display area plays a role in designingthe scope of viewing area, and in many if not most instances compressionstrategies will be required.

A reference graphic can actually be arbitrarily long, say down a longhallway, and an animation thus be minutes in length, or longer. A mirrorarray corresponding to such a long reference might be rather expensive,unless it were a regular pattern mirror, cheaply stamped out andembedded in flooring. Another strategy for viewing extended referencegraphics is, instead of an equally extended mirror array, using a smallbut moving mirror array moving in tandem with the viewer, such as anarray embedded in the moving handrail of a moving sidewalk.

The viewing area when indicated by, for example, a mark on the floor,should be understood to be typically a bulbous shape centered at averageeye level, from within which one can see the reflected image. Often theshape of a viewing area is roughly spherical or, as in the case ofsimple animated displays, shaped like a long thin balloon, somewhatpancaked. Complex branched, curved, angled, overlapped andcompartmentalized viewing areas are also possible. Viewing area size isfreely variable in all three dimensions, X, Y and Z—Z being distancefrom the display. In addition, the viewed image may degrade differentlyas the viewer moves out of the viewing area in different directions. Theway that a mirror tile array image degrades, de-coheres or disappears asa viewer moves outside the focal area is explored elsewhere, along withconsiderations for different methods for helping viewers locate and staywithin the viewing area of a mirror tile array display, sometimes assignaled by the way the image is designed to degrade as it begins topass out of view.

Binocular Reflection Sources

In narrow-view displays each eye needs its own reference swatch for eachmirror tile. If the distance between the eyes is about 2.5 inches, thena one-inch reference swatch could only be seen by one eye (the referenceswatches in this example are the same distance from the mirror as themirror is from the viewer, to keep the apparent size equal, for thissimple example, and the mirror size is a bit smaller than pupil size).Another swatch would be needed 2.5 inches away (on center) to reflect acolor to the other eye. Every mirror tile can therefore show a differentcolor, potentially, to each eye. The whole mirror tile display can,likewise, shows a different overall image, potentially, to each eye.While the left eye can be shown a pelican and the right eye a potato,though of course there are many much more interesting and usefulcomplementary image pairs. 3D stereo pairs can be shown, for example. A3D image can also be animated along a timeline, perhaps rotated, or evenshown along 2 (or more) time axes, where the horizontal axis encodesrotated views of the object and the vertical axis encodes anothermanipulation.

There are binocular implications when presenting animations. In the caseof a horizontal animation the two eyes will see the reference graphic atslightly different points in time. There are various ways to deal withthis, including in some cases the need to avoid horizontal animations,instead limiting certain types of animations to diagonal and verticalsituations, thus allowing a separate reference stripe for each eye,instead of the same refer reference at a slight time offset. Certaintypes of animations based on horizontal reference graphics can takebenefit from the eyes seeing temporally offset images, presenting 3Danimations that synchronize the offset to the scene's parallax offset,giving a realistic stereo 3D effect without needing separate images foreach eye, though this is a specialty case.

The binocular issue is a reference graphic complication even for stillimages, and there are several methods for dealing with it, one suchmethod is to arrange the palette in horizontal gradients within whichreflection targets are averaged between the eyes, in that each eye'sreflection spot is just to the side of each other, and the apparentcolor becomes the average of the two colors seen by each eye. Thoughbinocularity can be a complication in the design of mirror tiledisplays, it can also be a great advantage. Narrow view-field mirrortile array displays can present different images to both eyes, thussupporting 3D still images, 3D animations and interactive effects andother often unusual binocular vision effects.

The Nature of Designed Reference Graphics

A designed reflection source can be a printed image or a 3D object, canbe a recognizable image or object, a lake or a building, or an abstractdesigned object (a sculptural object, with the necessary colorattributes), can be a light source or a dynamically changing object orscreen display. Some reference color sets are partially ambient andpartially designed. For a simple example, a given reflection environmentmay provide virtually all colors necessary for full color images exceptcertain shades of bright green. A tree placed into this reflectionenvironment is, essentially, a designed reflection source, one that inthis case enables the reflection grid to construct full color images,where it previously could not, absent any source of the primary colorgreen.

Designed reference graphics are often abstract images, basically apresentation image, effect or animation encoded by a mirror array intoan unrecognizable jumble of colors, to be decoded by the mirror arrayupon viewing. In many cases the reference graphic will be very prominentand visible and must thus be presentable, interesting, decorative if notoutright attractive in its own right. When designing a given mirror gridarray and the reference graphic to support a given display effect, thereis typically great latitude in the possible tile angle patterns and,thus, the reference graphic configuration. The way the presentationimage encodes a mirror tile display thus often allows exercise ofaesthetic control over various reference graphic options, to make thereference graphic interesting, decorative and attractive or to conformit to the shape and location of the various available reference graphiclocations. The objective for a given display may be to make thereference graphics minimally obtrusive, and this can be done for examplesometimes by constraining them to rectangular areas, the peripheries ofwall sections, confined to a few feet near the tops of walls, forexample. Other options for shaping the reference graphics includeemulating the style of certain art media or certain artistic styles. Aspreviously noted, real images can be used as reference graphics, such asa series of familiar paintings, photos, subway maps, advertisementplacards, or any images that happens to be a super-set of the colorsneeded for the presentation images, but such reference images typicallyhave only small color patches, and therefore small viewing areas. Topresent images to wider view, expansive ambient color sources orspecifically placed colors would typically be used.

Mirror Tile Array Display Angle Pattern Types

There are 3 general types of mirror tile array angle patterns: 1)randomly angled, 2) regularly patterned, 3) derived from a givenpresentation image and reference pattern combination.

1) Randomly Angled Arrays:

The tiles in a mirror tile array can be randomly angled, perhapsconstrained to within a certain angle range, but still random withinthat range. One reason for a randomly angled array is so that when thegrid is seen from outside of the viewing area, when random objects arereflected, the array will not display any image artifacts, will seemunremarkable and unobtrusive.

Another purpose of randomized tile angles is so that when pedestrianspass in front of and interrupt the display, as is possible in somesettings, the degradation of the image is randomly distributed, ratherthan causing an absolute interruption of parts of the image.

There are also different types of randomness, with different propertiesdesirable in different situations. For example, randomness may beconstrained so that no two neighboring mirror tiles may referenceneighboring swatches. Or randomness may be combined with order, such aswhen each successive row of mirror tiles is constrained to reference acolor in the upper half or the lower half of the reference palette, butreference a random swatch according to these or other constraints. Thiswould result in a tendency to display subtle stripes, a kind of asecondary texture behind the explicit image, even when random colorsources are reflected.

2) Regularly Patterned Arrays

This is a very wide category, with many different types of regularpatterns with different useful properties. One of the motivations forusing regular patterns is to provide an attractive reflection when adisplay is seen from a perspective from which the engineered colorsource cannot be seen. Another motivation for regular patterns is tosimplify development or manufacture of displays, allowing variousstandard displays to be based on mass produced mirror arrays and easilydeveloped or deployed reference patterns. For example, one regularpattern may provide that reference graphics are constrained is a waythat is useful for a certain printing pattern, such as in that it refersto a graphic reference pattern which is constrained to 14 inch stripes.Various regular patterns can be designed for displaying animations, inthat they distribute their reflection reference to a stripe pattern, asnecessary for animation.

3) Arrays Derived from a Given Reference Pattern or Presentation Imageor Effect:

When a coherent image or an ambient environment is used as a source, theangle pattern for a presentation image that draws on that pattern mayseem random, but is not actually random. It is a function of the sourceimage and the presentation image, though

with some variability since colors can often be sourced from any numberof different parts of the reference image. As already noted, a mirrorangle pattern derived from a given source image/display image pair canstill display a new presentation image, provided that a source image isdesigned based on the presentation image as encoded by the existingangle pattern.Animation & Relative Motion

Mirror tile array animations typically require that the viewer be inrelative motion with respect to the reflection grid or the referencegraphic. Mirror tile array animation invoked by viewer movement, ascompared to animation invoked by movement of the mirror array or of thereference graphic, has the advantage of allowing the viewer to directlycontrol the animation. Though there are advantages, in many cases, touser actuated animation, there are other situations that can't rely onuser movement based animation, and relative movement must be invoked bymovement either of the array or the reference graphic. In cases whereaccurate regular movement is the priority for a given display viewermovement-based animation may not be the best method. In these cases theviewer and the mirror may be stationary while a reference graphic ismechanically moved in relationship to them, at a fixed speed, to presenta constant-speed animation. Similarly, when reference graphics arehighly compressed, the control of the indexing (movement of the array ofmirror tile reflections through the reference graphics) must be muchmore precise and again may need to be mechanically controlled.

Focused Mirror Tiles

Curved mirror tile surfaces and other methods can be used to focusmirror tiles toward size-reduced reference graphics, as a form ofreference graphic compression. One alternative focusing method is tointerpose a concave reflective surface between the mirror tiles andtheir reference graphics. Both of these methods allow effectively muchlarger reference graphics, resulting in viewing areas and effectdurations much larger and greater than otherwise possible. The opticalprecision of a focusing reflector for all mirror tiles need not begreat, and can actually be rather crude, since the specific shape of thecurve can be measured and accommodated for in the shape of the referencegraphic. When mirror tiles are focused onto smaller spaces and smallerreference graphics, those graphics must be more brightly lit, inrelation to the amount of compression.

Refractive, Instead of Reflective Tiles

A window can be configured with a refractive mirror tile array thattranslates a given outdoor scene into any arbitrary other image (as longat it uses a palette subset of the existing scene). A series of windowscan thus present a gallery of different images all mirror array-derivedfrom one existing outdoor tableau. If the existing scene is a cityscape,then areas of the street will be registered in the mirror tile paletteas dynamic color sources, and these can be used as active elements inentirely different types of images—a series of several differentmountain scenes, for example, refractively translated from a city scene,where the passing colored cars can be flowers moving in a field ofgrass.

Mirror tile eyeglasses can be constructed for various specialty effects,such as reading hidden images in a specially prepared book orinteracting with computer-based 3D displays, using the same binocularimage separation techniques as described for reflective displays.

Re-Referenced Mirror Tiles

In many installation sites there won't be enough opposite wall space toaccommodate all the reference graphics required for a desired image oreffect. Reference graphic space can be greatly increased byre-referencing some mirror tiles back to the same wall upon which themirror tile array is mounted, or to other available wall space notline-of-sight from the mirror tile array. Assume a mirror tile displaythat requires 100 reference swatches, but is mounted facing a wall thatonly accommodates 60 swatches. The remaining 40 swatches can all bepointed at a single mirror swatch, hung among the 60 standard colorswatches, and these 40 swatches are thus then re-referenced back topoints on the mirror tile array's own wall, or even a wall out of sightof both the array and the viewer of the array. The reference graphicsincreases and, along with it, the potential image complexity and displaysiting options.

With precise re-referencing mirror tiles, all source graphics of anarray can be radically abstracted away from the mirror tile array site,down hallways to walls not visible from the image viewing location, tovarious points half a mile across a city park, within sight but toosmall to readily discern as associated with the presentation image.

Self Contained Mirror Array and Graphics

In one embodiment of the invention that utilizes re-referenced mirrortiles the source images can be integrated into a wide frame around themirror array itself. In this type of self-contained mirror tile display,the mounting of the display is simpler than in other embodiments, inthat only a mirror need be mounted opposite, to reference all the mirrortiles back to the frame-resident reference graphics and thus invoke themirror tile display. This would, however, be a narrow viewing rangedisplay.

Effects

Texture Reference Effects

When a series of contiguous pixels reference a moving texture, such astree leaves or water ripples, those mirror tiles will not be solidlycolored, but slightly moving or shimmering, as each mirror tile's colorreference source area is in motion and each mirror tile's content movesperhaps in a constant direction, as when referencing flowing water thatmoves in one consistent direction, or a random direction, as whenreferencing leaves on a tree, which might be moving one way or theother. Interesting effects can be invoked by relatively offsetting thereference angle one mirror tile to the next, so that even random sourcetexture movements will register as coherent waves or other patterns,instead of as random activity. Different relative offset patterns givedifferent effects not present in the referenced object. For example, agradually increasing offset will result in a wave washing across theneighboring mirror tiles at a changing speed.

Color Offset and Gradient References

There is a wide range of color mixing techniques possible whenreferencing the transition or border between two or more color patches.In display situations with high angle targeting accuracy, and astabilized viewing position, color swatch offset targeting can be usedto greatly increase the number of available colors. For example, if ablue swatch borders a red swatch, targeting this border effectivelygives a purple mirror tile. When very high accuracy is possible,multiple shades of purple can be targeted, by targeting differentpercentage splits of the two (or more) bordering colors. In order toreference 256 shades of grey, for a high-fidelity greyscale image, itmight normally be necessary to deploy 256 color swatches, requiringperhaps an 16×16 inch area (for a narrow view display). Alternatively, a1×2 inch area could afford a larger, effectively continuous palette ofgrays, when using offset color referencing. A black swatch next to awhite swatch provides a full grey scale tone map, as any percentage ofgrey from white to black is available by targeting one or the otherswatches, or any point between the two. In many cases this level ofprecision is not possible, but adjustments on this strategy can be madeto accord with the available level of mirror targeting precision.

When color offset targeting accuracy fails, the display color drifts toone or the other source colors. In cases where this potentially canhappen the problem can be moderated by balancing identical offsets inreverse polarity, so that slight movement will not affect the combinedcolor balance.

In many mirror tile display viewing situations, viewer positioningaccuracy is more accurate in one dimension. The color border targetingeffect can often only be used in this dimension and to accommodate thisthe palette can be constructed so that useful color mixing borders arealong this dimension. In other ways as well, such as by carefullypairing useful mix colors, offset color mixing advantages can be greatlyoptimized by the geometry of the color swatch pattern, especially aspertains to the color needs of a given image. Offsets are not limited tojust two colors.

Color gradient references can also be used in place of one-to-one mirrortile-to swatch references. Although a mirror tile that references apoint on a gradient is not going to present a solid color, if thegradient is gradual enough then the visual result may effectively be asolid color. There are, in addition, various graphic effects enabled bygradient references, such as simple overall interactivebrightening/darkening or hue adjustment of an image, and differentialadjustability of certain parts of an image, when just some parts of animage are constructed of gradient references.

Viewer Positioning Indicators

Mirror tile array displays can be situated so that the viewing positionis in the natural path of the viewer, and the viewer need not adjust hisposition or movement in any way in order to see the image or effect. Inother cases the encounter with the display is entirely under the controlof discretionary movement and positioning by the viewer. In these casethe viewer may need to be cued as to the existence of a mirror tiledisplay, the proper direction from which to enter it, if there is adirectionality to the viewing path, and cued to movement options oncewithin the viewing area.

Once within the viewing area the viewer's positioning options may besimple, as for a still image display where the only requirement upon theviewer is to maintain position within the viewing area in order toretain the image in view. Or, the positioning options may be complex, asfor a long, branched and stratified animation, where the progression ofimages and effects is dependent on complex movement alternatives on thepart of the viewer. Other complexities arise when a viewer sees one ofseveral possible unconnected images of a given display, and might needto be directed as to the existence of and position of the various otherviewable images.

For someone not yet viewing a display there are several ways to cue theproper approach to the display, and for those already viewing thedisplay there are various ways to indicate the boundaries and viewingoptions within the display. Some of these indicators, such as marks onthe floor, are useful as indicators for viewers both inside and outsidethe viewing area. Some only apply only within the display area, such asimage effects and messages and arrows encoded into the image. Here aresome examples of viewer position indicators:

Floor Markings:

A spot with an arrow is easily understood to mean “stand here and lookover there”. For animated displays an arrowed line can be designed to bealmost equally intuitive. For high traffic areas along long hallways andother pedestrian situations the interplay of floor markings andavailable mirror tile array views can become very elaborate andengaging, even game-like, especially when a series of related displaysare integrated in some ongoing coherent presentation. A parallel seriesof long animations in a long hallway, each indicated by parallelpositioning lines on the floor can be embellished with indications ofthe various significant points in the various animations, and theirvarious interactions. Interactions can include points at which oneanimation can, plot-wise or message-wise, switch to an animation on analternate track. Animations can also branch together and apart, brieflysharing an identical frame, and allowing the viewer to choose one of twoor more alternate paths upon which to view the continued animation,elected by their continued movement along one of the available viewingpaths traced along the hallway floor. The floor marking indicationswould graphically map out these and other animation events, as well aspossibly provide key frames and other summary information and overviewto participants in such displays.

Spotlights:

Similar to marks on the floor, but in some cases under programmaticcontrol, spotlights can guide viewers through a sequence of viewingpositions, perhaps in a gallery setting.

Armatures:

A simple physical pointer, perhaps a few inches long and mounted above adisplay can directly point to the viewing position or positions for adisplay. This armature can for example be a simple straight rod or ahoop at the end of a rod with an associated target at the base of therod, such that lining up these two elements puts one at the viewingposition. The shape of the hoop and target could show the shape of theviewing area or areas, and when there is more than one viewing area thearrangement of the hoops that indicate each area also shows the relativeposition of the multiple areas, thus indicating to viewers how to moveamong the different viewing areas.

Navigation Keys:

A section of a display can be dedicated to providing overviewinformation about the display, including providing positioning cues.This section can be by convention located in a certain corner of thedisplay, such as in a large mall, museum, airport or city, or othervenue where there are a series of mirror tile array displays, so thatviewers will quickly learn to refer to it.

Written Instructions:

Written instructions, or simple arrows, can be incorporated into displayimages, to guide viewers. Even more simply, and obviously, writteninstructions may be provided adjacent to a display.

Mirror Tile Halo Viewer Positioning Cues:

When an image palette is consolidated to, for example, 32 colors, theentire reference graphic need only occupy approximately 64 square inches(1 square inch per eye per color=64 square inches). This is a very smalland precise viewing area. Of course, this allows a large number ofdifferent viewing areas with different images, but whenever there is asmall viewing area such as this it is helpful to provide homing cues forfinding and maintaining the view. If all these 64 reference areas arespread out, and then surrounded with a halo of black, the target colorfor each mirror tile fading to black in all directions, and if all isprinted on a background of white, then image viewers will see thefollowing viewing cue:

If the image starts to darken, then they have to move back in thedirection opposite the direction of movement that resulted in the imagedarkening, to re-center themselves at the proper viewing position.Another mirror tile halo cue might be a caret pointing toward theviewing center, inwards from all sides. Another mirror tile halo viewerpositioning cue might use color to cue the position correctiondirection. For example a reddening image may indicate that a rightwardcorrection is required while a blue tinging may indicate that a leftwardcorrection is required.

Guide Mirror Tiles (Visible Either or Both from within or Outside theViewing Area):

Color cues, animations or patterns can be encoded into just the borders,edge or corners of a display, as a subtle and intuitive form ofdirectional cues. “indicator” rows might be the entire 4 or 5 bottom rowof mirror tiles in an array configured to display a marquee lights styleanimation, or advanced and more subtle variation of such an animation,with the purpose of attracting the gaze of passersby at the operativemoment as well as helping to direct their position, to better view theapproaching display. Similarly, degradation of an array may be biased tobegin first at the edges, to cue viewers to reverse their movement inthat direction, to avoid losing their view of the display.

Providing a special indicator animation, in for example the top orbottom 5 rows, or even in 10 rows or columns in the very center of thedisplay, does not require that these mirror tiles can no longer be partof the presentation image. All that is required to display thisadditional mirror tile array animation or image entirely separate fromthe display image is that an entirely separate reference graphic beprovided, supporting the given effect. This is simply a special case ofthe general ability of mirror tile displays to different images andeffects to different viewing position.

Generic Distortion Effects

It is possible to present funhouse mirror type effects with mirror tilegrids. For example it is possible to invert sections of a reflection andthen, as apparent to a passerby, restore the orientation of thosesections of the reflection. Individual mirror tiles would not be notinverted, but the order of the reflected rows would be inverted,resulting in an apparent image inversion. Image distortions of all typesare also possible, by simply gradually varying mirror tile angle acrossan array, in a combination of sine wave patterns. A mirror tile arraycan also be configured as a telescope, or a macroscope, provided greattile angle accuracy. Mirror tile arrays are effectively a very versatilereflection surface for general purpose reflection and distortioneffects, aside from specific color translation purposes. A live actuatedarray combined with machine vision and interactive control ispotentially a very precise and versatile instrument with many uses.

A reflective tile array is also effective with regard to the describedtechniques when reflecting other wave-propagated phenomena other thanvisible light, such as sound, and non-visible portions of theelectromagnetic spectrum, provided reflective surfaces appropriate tothe given waveform and an appropriate sensing device.

Techniques

Linear Compression of Animation Reference Stripes

When an animation is converted to a mirror tile array reference graphic,each individual pixel in the animation is, typically, converted to astripe, hundreds or thousands of which constitute the full referencegraphic. These mirror tile reflection reference stripes, these animationpixel timelines, are read or “indexed” by the viewer by his movementalong the viewing path, which actuates en masse movement of each mirrortile in the array through its individual reflection reference stripe.Thus, reflected back to the viewer are the pixel timelines of allpixels/mirror, as an animation visible in the array. The speed ofindexing through an animation is set by the speed of the viewer alongthe viewing path, other things, such as the geometry of the reflectionrelationship, being equal. If a viewer of the reflective animation isexpected to move quickly along the viewing path, the animationtime-to-path length ratio must be small. The stripe length for a givenduration of animation will need to be relatively long where, instead,the viewer is expected to move slowly along the viewing path. The idealspeed of reflection indexing is, often, much slower than viewermovement. Thus, it is often advantageous to optimize reflection geometryto reduce the reflection reference speed. There are many methods forthis. Each pixel's single frame's worth of animation as encoded into thereference stripe will itself become a line segment, will be longer thanit is wide. If the viewer's speed is expected to be low, the reflectionreference stripe will be short, and each pixel's length along the linewill become shorter and shorter. At a certain very low viewing speed,the speed of the reflection vector along the encoded stripe becomes soslow that the limit of print resolution is reached. This is actuallyclose to the ideal indexing speed: Any slower and it is not possible toprint each frame, as each frame encodes to too short a length in eachpixel's reference stripe; Any faster and reference graphic print area isbeing wasted. There are various ways to use adjunct mirrors, lenses andreference graphic proximity to more closely approach this optimum ratioof reference image indexing speed.

One category of techniques is to focally concentrate all of thereflection vectors with large curved mirrors. As with still imagere-reflection focal source color size reduction with large curvedmirrors, an inexpensive imprecisely curved sheet metal mirror can beused. Once the mirror is in place, the newly redirected color sources orpaths, the new locations that is for the reference colors or stripes,including any distortions due to inaccurate mirror concavity, are not aproblem for an updated reference graphic printout. This is because thenew mirror tile reflection color source locations or paths can bedirectly determined by shining a light from the viewer position or alongthe viewer path, into the array, and photographing the resultingreflection pattern with a digital camera that can easily be calibratedto the given wall or mounting position geometry.

A correlation of animation frame rate to index graphic printed stripelength that represents good compression might be approximately 10seconds to an inch (assuming 30 FPS video and 600 DPI printing, andassuming one frame per 2 printed dots). Higher quality printing may beable to significantly improve upon this, at a price (more expensiveprinting). Such a high print compression factor would rely upon precisefocusing along at least in the direction of indexing, to expand eachframe to the width of the referencing mirror, and rely as well uponaccurate indexing speed.

Mirror tile array animation is generally very limited in X and Yresolution, compared to video, due to the constraints in availablereference graphics real estate, with thousands of individual pixels eachrequiring not just a reference graphic swatch, but a reference graphicstripe, that stripe extending in length in proportion to the length ofthe animation. But mirror tiles in many situations have extra capacityin T resolution (T=time). One strategy is to trade some of the availableT resolution for X and Y resolution, by using the minimum ink necessaryfor each frame, greatly reducing the amount of space needed to encode alength of animation and thus allow more room to increase the number ofreference stripes and thus the presentation image resolution.

One example: A linearly uncompressed 20-second animation might requirereference stripes 30 feet long. If the available reference graphic spaceallowed the encoding of just 2,500 30 foot long reference stripes, thenthe animation would be limited to 2,500 pixels. The same animationlinearly compressed to 2 inches would allow the same animation at450,000 pixels, nearly half a mega-pixel. Two axis focal compressionwould further optimize the use of reflection reference display space,allowing a further increase in the display animations pixel resolution.Additional compression techniques, noted elsewhere, could be applied tofurther reduce the reference graphic foot print.

Animation “Frame Rate”

In earlier discussions it has been assumed that video encoded intomirror tile reference stripes will have a T (time) dimensiondiscontinuity, a “frame rate” that is, one slice of time every 30th of asecond, for example, one snapshot of the animation scene every 30th of asecond, similar in concept to standard movies and video. The rigid X/Ygrid of traditional pixels is quite malleable for mirror tiles, asalready noted (even to the point of mirror tiles becoming too small tobe individually visible, and thus effectively becoming a continuoussmooth surface). Similarly, there is no inherent structure in a mirrortile array display's T dimension, except as may be introduced by thereference image print, or other reference image production method.Mirror tile animation is similar to vector animation in this respect,which similarly has no concept of frame rate, except as it may beimposed by the presentation medium. This means that video which isencoded into mirror tile reference graphics unnecessarily limits themirror tile animation frame rate to perhaps 30 frames per second, thoughmirror tiles can easily present much higher frame rates.

Unless video is encoded to reference stripes which are closely matchedto the horizontal resolution of the printing medium, then the printedreference has unused potential for increased frame rate resolution.Since to a certain degree an increase in frame rate above 30 FPS willresult in perceptibly improved video fidelity, it can be useful to takeadvantage, to at least some extent, of the mirror tile array medium'scapability for arbitrarily high frame rate. Tests have shown that whilea minimum of approximately 15 FPS is needed to establish the illusion ofanimation, and approximately 30 FPS is needed to comfortably solidifythe illusion, 60 FPS brings an additional noticeable improvement inrealism. Therefore, in some cases, a more appropriate video source formirror tile array animation displays may be a higher speed camera.Computer-generated animation would be an especially apt source formirror tile array displays, not only because animations can easily beoutput from computer generated graphics at any frame rate, but becauseof the many other fluid parameters in a mirror tile array display—pixelsize and shape, component color scheme, juxtaposition of animated andstill imagery in a single frame, etc.—all of which can be readilymanaged programmatically but are difficult to deal with otherwise.

Reference Graphic Geometries and Space Constraints

When a color reference for animation is generated there are variousgeometric constraints on how the pixel reference stripes can be packed.Different compression techniques can be used in different situations toreduce the reference graphic size requirements, but there remaincompression limits, and a premium on careful design to enable oroptimize a given effect. For a very simple example, a packed referencepalette (“packed” meaning that the color swatches all border each otherwith no additional space) for a still image cannot support animationbecause, being packed, the colors in the palette cannot be extended intostripes, in any direction. Before such a still image can be converted toan animation or be enhanced with any interactive effects (which arebased on viewer movement that correspondingly changes the reflectedimage source size from a swatch to an elongated shape, minimally a“stripe”) the geometry of the reference palette must be changed, toaccommodate the necessary reference graphics shape changes. Some stillimage effects require a buffer area surrounding each pixel, which in aone-to-one mirror tile to reference swatch relationship would bloat thereference graphic size requirements, if it were not for compressiontechniques, such as consolidating mirror tile-swatch references (whichin typical images with moderately constrained palettes can easily leadto 100 or 1000 times palette compression and thus similar reduction inthe size of the reference graphic). Still, some effects make greatdemands on reference graphic real estate, and more complicatedcompression techniques may be required.

The first-level consideration in optimizing reference graphic size is toarrange the mirror tile reference shapes so that they can be mosteffectively packed. For example, an L-shaped two perpendicular axisanimation or effect requires each swatch to conform to the inverse Lshape of this intended viewer movement. Therefore, the geometry ofoptimal L-packing is the likely best geometry for the reference palette.Another example, perhaps more complicated, is the case of an effect tobe viewed in movement along the Z axis (distance from the display),where the reference patches extend radially, which means they will notbe parallel, and thus less easily packed. Depending upon the availablereference graphic space there are various optimizations to the packingof the radial reference stripes, which are a collection of stripesprobably of varying length, at all orientations around the compass. Forexample, each swatch stripe has its 180 degree complement, and all thesepairs are parallel, and might effectively be plotted right next to eachother in the reference graphic. Further, stripes of very close angle canbe reasonably packed very closely.

Mirror tile array displays utilizes novel and unfamiliar compressionconcepts not present in other media. For example, no two pixel timetrails may be identical, but the 2nd half of one may be identical to thefirst half of the other. These two pixel time trails can be combinedinto one trail, with the first pixel referencing the first ⅔ of thistrail, and the 2nd pixel referencing the last ⅔ of it. Multiple pixeltime trail merges can afford useful additional compression incombination with other strategies. Preparation of the video to optimizeit for the unique compression methods available can increase theapplicability of pixel time trail overlap, and other techniques.

Interactive Subject-Reflective Display Image Manipulations

An image of a face can use as its reference graphic another face, eventhe face of the viewer of display image face. In other words, a viewer'sown face can provide the source colors for the construction of anotherface.

Color targeting of faces can be configured to be optimally adaptable todifferent faces so that many people, with varying facial features, cansee a desired display image. For example, to produce the eyebrows in thedisplay image face it might in some cases be helpful not to referencethe eyebrows of the reference source face, thus ultimately of theviewer, since many women have very thin eyebrows and, in general,eyebrow location is very variable. Better perhaps to refer to head hair,in order to color the eye brows of the presentation image—though headsare also unreliable sources of hair color . . . . (It might be allowedthat for a given display, bald viewers will see an eye brow-less displayimage). The fine structure of the eyes might need to be derived frommore easily targeted locations. It might be necessary to target thewhite of the display image eyes from the actual white of the viewer'seyes, and let that act as a homing element for viewing. The pupil mightbe targeted from hair (though this would not work for blond viewers or,again, for bald viewers). The iris might be targeted from the upper body(resulting in frequent blue, green, brown and black irises, which isfine, but also in red, orange and white irises, depending on theclothing worn by the subject, which may be fine too, and interesting inits own way—or not). The occasional odd results in the coloration insome facial elements might be part of the interest and amusingvariability of such interactive facial images. Or, it might be requiredthat the reflection be enhanced with a source of black and white, forcertain key facial areas.

Setting aside the subtleties of color source options when the imageviewer is the graphic source, the key attraction of viewer referentialimages might be the facial transform capability of such displays. Eachsuch display can, in effect, change the source graphic face, theviewer's face, into an entirely different face: Ben Franklin, MarilynMonroe, James Dean, Albert Einstein, Groucho Marx a Cro Magnon man, afanciful face, an animal face, etc. One of the most interesting resultsof this configuration is that the celebrity or fanciful target faceconstructed from the viewer's face is controllable in real time by theviewer's face. This effect is like wearing a prosthetic face, orbecoming the celebrity or fantasy person or entity, given the liveinteractivity. Further, the expressions on the input and output facescan be related in fanciful ways. Expressions can be mapped differently,for example by remapping facial regions so that movement of one part ofthe face will result in the reflective construction a differentmovement, different expression change. Exaggeratedly enlarged ears couldbe constructed from cheek area colors in such a way that when the viewerbloats his or her cheeks the ears will move. It would be a kind offacial puppetry using one's own face to control another face, that facein the reflectively apparent position of the puppeteer's own face.Fanciful creature faces can also be constructed, with radicallydistorted features, but which still retain mobility, directly mapped tothe expressive movement of the viewer's face. Fanciful features can beadded as well, so that not only are chins articulated by the viewer'schin movement, but other facial parts as well—or the chin itself couldbe constructed of forehead reflections, and the chin can be dedicated tothe control of the alternate fanciful facial parts in the display.

One hurdle in designing such facial interactive reflectors is to makethem work with both eyes at the same time. There are various reflectionpattern constraints that can help support binocular vision, but thesemay compromise some of the best effects described so far. One elegantresolution of the binocular problem in viewer referential images is torequire that the viewer wear a patch over one eye when viewing thedisplay. This is elegant because a) the patch provides a surface onwhich additional useful reference colors can be printed, and printedaccurately, greatly enhancing the display image and b) the viewer willsee him/herself with both eyes, will not see the patch, in thereflection, and will to a great degree not recall that he is wearing aneye patch.

For high-accuracy facial translation mirror tile array displays to becustomized for specific faces/viewers, would require at least one facialphotograph. For a great boost in image accuracy, several photographsshowing the subject displaying a wide range of facial expressions andmouth positions would be necessary, so that the various changeablefacial color sources can be registered, along with the facial colorsources that remain static during facial mobility. A fully registeredmirror tile array reference palette is essential for constructing theanimated portions of the constructed image. The subject would thenchoose the target face, or faces, that they would like to havereflectively translated from their image. Simulation software, using theregistered palette as a basis, would be able to provide previews of thechosen display images, and allow customization of the display image andthe available live manipulations: Would you like your raised eyebrow toreflect as enlarged eyes, on this display image cartoon face? Would youlike your pursed lips to reflect as gills opening and closing, on thisdisplay image creature? Would you like your smile to reflect directly asthis particular expression on Sean Connery's face, or this otherexpression of his, or this one? Popular alter egos for customizedtranslation mirrors might be Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, JamesDean, Albert Einstein and other iconic figures, along with a range oftheir characteristic facial expressions and changes between expressions.

Computer Managed Reference Graphics

A computer display can be a mirror tile graphics reference. Variousinteractive effects can be managed programmatically, including dynamictracking of viewers' position, updating the reference image in variousways such as by shifting it in response to viewer movement so that theviewing area follows the viewer. Stereo vision reference images whenmanaged by computer become usefully interactive, given theprogrammability of the computer display, opening a wide range ofentertainment and technically useful effects.

Wrap-Around Immersive Display

Assume a wide mirror tile array at comfortable viewing distance, gentlycurved horizontally such that every mirror tile in the middle row ofmirror tiles is the same distance from the viewer's eyes. Assume thatthis one array covers 30 degrees of the viewer's visual field,horizontally, and 20 degrees vertically. The reference graphic is alarge and high resolution computer projection display above and behindthe viewer's head, providing enough reference graphics area for highresolution binocular 3D in the mirror tile array. So far this is atypical 3D mirror tile array display, that happens to use a computerdisplay to manage the reference graphics. Now assume 5 more identicalmirror tile array side by side with the first, each referencing the samereference graphics monitors behind the viewer. Whatever image had beenon the first display is now repeated 6 times, once on each display.Together the six arrays form a single seamless mirror tile array,covering 180 degrees of the viewer's visual field, horizontally. Bystacking 5 more rows of such displays on top of this first row of 6we'll have a display that covers 180 degrees horizontally and 120degrees vertically. We now have a single very large wrap-around display,though the image displayed remains the size of a 20×30 degree display,repeated 36 times. This is a wrap-around display but not a wraparoundimage.

Next, let's add a pair of eyeglasses that constrain the viewer'speripheral vision, so that he sees no more than approximately 20×30degrees at a time. This is a very functional visible range, larger thanthe useful field of vision necessary for most tasks. Finally, assume atracking device, so that the system accurately knows where the viewer islooking.

This mirror tile display is about to become, functionally, a 180×120degree 3D display. Though each of the 36 panels of the overall mirrortile array still displays the same image as all the others, as they mustdo, since they all reflect the same computer display reference graphic.The viewer, however, does not see more than one image at a time. The keyto invoking the illusion of a single unified wide-field display is toupdate the image with the changing eye position of the viewer. If theviewer looks to the left, in a 3D scene for example, the display showsthe left side of the 3D scene. If the viewer looks up, the display showsthe view in that direction. If the viewer slowly pans from left toright, the view slowly pans from left to right, the frame of the imagetracking perfectly with the viewer's moving gaze.

When the viewer's gaze straddles two or more panels in the mirror tiledisplay, the display is not split, as when looking between twoneighboring television screens. The viewer sees the display centeredwherever he is looking. In order for the frame of the frame of the sceneto straddle large display's component panels the computer managedreference graphic simply needs to slide the reference graphic laterally,proportionally to the viewer's offset from the center of a givencomponent panel.

The mirror pattern for these panels will most often be identical, formanufacturing reasons, though unique mirror patterns would also work.When identical flective angle patterns are used the reference graphicdoes still need to be adjusted slightly, optimized to the given panel,since each is at a slightly different perspective. The same referencegraphic will roughly apply to all, but should be slightly transformed tobest fit the panel of current gaze.

Configuration Methods

The color of a mirror tile array pixel can be established, for a givenmirror tile array display either through 1) placement of the requiredcolors (for a given display image) where each mirror tile alreadypoints, or in; 2) pointing each mirror where the proper color alreadyexists, or in; 3) designing and engineering both color source positionand mirror angle in tandem. Here are guidelines for these three mostcommon mirror tile array display development scenarios.

1) Implementation by Reference Graphic Configuration:

Mirror array is pre-set;

Reference graphic is freely configurable.

When a mirror tile array display is based on a pre-set mirror array, thedecode/encode pattern (i.e., the mirror array angle settings pattern)can be discovered by shining a light from the viewing position to thereference graphic location, through each tile, in sequence. This processcan be automated, with complicated equipment, or done by hand,laboriously.

Alternatively, and ideally, when a custom mirror array is generated, theangle pattern is saved for future reference, so that if or when a newimage is to be displayed using that array, the graphic encoding thatmust be applied to produce the reference graphic for that new image isreadily available. This encoding transform, when applied to any givenimage, with the resulting encoded graphic then mounted in the properreference position, for a chosen viewing location, displays the newimage in the array. When the mirror array's transform is available, allthat needs to be measured at the site are a few anchor points of thereflection locations, to establish the boundaries for the properpositioning of the reflection source as it should be positioned in thegiven location. For example, if the reference graphics are to be mountedon a slanted wall, the anchor points will determine how to skew(applying an affine transformation) the entire encoded graphic, so thatwhen mounted at that location it can be properly read by the mirrorarray.

When a pre-set mirror array is based on certain regular patterns, someof which are designed to ease the production of reference graphics, thatmirror array may be made available with a source graphics productiontemplate. Such a mirror array pattern may be specialized in constrainingsource graphics in long strips convenient for printing, or other shapesuseful in other ways.

2) Implementation by Tile (Fleet) Angle Configuration:

Mirror array is freely configurable;

Reference graphic is pre-set:

When a reference graphic or color array is already in place, either inthe form of a generated graphic that was mirror encoded to produce anunrelated image, or in the form of a happenstance pre-existing ambientcolor constellation, it is required that the palette/angle table of thiscolor reference environment be available, in order to set the angletiles of a new mirror tile array to reference these colors, and thusgenerate new images based on these colors. One method, noted previously,to compile an ambient palette involves photographing the scene with anangle-normalized digital camera (to account for lens distortion). Thepalette for a printed reference graphic can similarly be derived fromscratch, though it is preferable to have the original file that producedthe graphic, because it contains the palette/angle table. Once thepalette/angle table is available, for a given mirror tile array displaymounting location, the mirror angle pattern to reflectively produce anygiven image can then be calculated (provided that it is a palette subsetof the existing color set). A computer program performing such anglecalculations is basically following a process that can, alternatively,be laboriously performed by hand.

The by-hand process of determining the mirror tile angle settingsrequired for a given image, and then setting them to the thousands ofmirror tiles in a given array, can be illustrated if we assume a mirrorarray with tiles that can freely pivot and be set by hand. Theconfigurable angles of mirror tile arrays can be manufactured in manyways, and freely configurable mirror tiles are certainly not the leastexpensive, and are used here just for illustrative purposes. Two people,working in tandem, can perform the angle determination task, and set theangles to each mirror tile, though the task is very laborious for anyuseful number of mirror tiles, so for this illustration we'll use asimplified case of 10×10 mirror tile array. One person is at the viewinglocation, and is referring to a print out of the desired presentationgraphic. Our demonstration graphic will be the letter “A”. That graphichas been converted to the exact resolution of the tile array and itspalette has been constrained to the available reflective palette. In ourinstance the only necessary colors are black for the letter and lightblue for a background. Each pixel/mirror is perhaps numbered, or atleast easy to identify on the grid. The color of each pixel is alsoperhaps numbered, to assist in the targeting. The person at the viewingposition calls out a pixel number and its color assignment and hiscollaborator, whose job it is to physically target the mirror tiles,then locates that numbered mirror tile, and tries to aim it at thecorrect color, where ever it is listed as existing in the surroundingenvironment or in the available reference graphic. When successfullyaimed, the proper color reflection will be apparent to the firsttechnician, and the process then proceeds to the next mirror tile (i.e.,pixel).

Both these functions could be automated using simple devices. A colorsensor at the viewing position could work in tandem with a device thatarticulates a mirror at each mirror tile location, methodically scanningback and forth across the reflectable field. When the proper color isreflected for the given mirror tile position, the color sensor will seeit, and the position of the mirror can be noted and the process repeatedfor another mirror tile position.

3) Implementation by Reference Graphic and Tile Angle Configuration inTandem:

Mirror array is freely configurable;

Reference graphic is freely configurable:

When both the mirror array and the reference graphic are unconstrainedthere is a complex interplay of the full range of design variables andoptions of these two components. In this situation a computer model isprobably the only realistic approach to effectively explore the vastrange of options, at least for some of the more advanced effects. Forthis process the necessary 3D computer model of the display environmentcan be constructed based on a survey of the geometry of the mountinglocation of both the mirror tile array and the reference graphics. It isnot important how the geometry of the site is recorded, only that it isaccurate. Or, a geometrically accurate reference graphic and mirrorarray relationship can be based on the assumption that one or both ofthese two elements will be freestanding and thus the geometry asexplored virtually can be implemented in the actual setting. Acompromise approach is to at least roughly survey the geometry of thedeployment location and then design an array/reference graphic/viewingposition scenario based on those rough dimensions, making sure to workwithin the available bounds of the given location. For example, if wedesign a mirror tile display that requires the mirror array and thereference graphic be mounted facing each other, perfectly parallel, 10feet apart and on center, this is easy to design and implement in alocation with 11 available feet, or 12.2 available feet, for example. Ifhowever the given location requires that reference graphic must bedistributed among several patches mounted on various walls at differentangles with respect to the mirror array, this would require an accurateon-site survey of the 3D space. Even the original plans of the buildingmay not suffice, for some displays, as when accuracy is at a premium,since a building's foundation shift of ½ an inch can throw off thealignment of a mirror grid and its reference graphics. Once a computermodel is of a given deployment situation and display effect intention,many iterations of the various optional design parameters can be testedagainst each other, and artistic and functional choices can be weighed.3D renderings and animation of possible mirror grids, reference graphicsarrangements and the resulting viewer experiences can be renderedprogrammatically and interactively tweaked based on the many variablesinvolved in any presentation situation.

Fabrication

There are many ways to produce the mirror arrays used by mirror tilearray systems. Here's a brief outline of some implementation methods formirror tile arrays:

-   -   Arrays can be mass produced, especially when based on standard        regular mirror array patterns that can be stamped into        reflective foil or other media;    -   Arrays can be machined, when based on custom angle settings;    -   Arrays can be constructed of modular components, using a set of        differently angled shims, stacked and combined as needed, at        various orientations, to produce any angle;    -   Arrays can be built using any number of different designs of        articulating mirror tiles, which could then could be set to any        designated angle by hand, by automated device or even to a        random setting—a stochastic approach—allowing the image to be        produced by the reference graphic then designed based on the        accidental array and the desired view image.

It is not important to the underlying invention which method is used,though some proprietary manufacturing methods can be developed. What iskey is that the system can be built by any number of methods.Nonetheless, it may be useful to note some of the basic approaches tobuilding or manufacturing mirror arrays.

CNC

One method is for a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine totake input from the tile angle settings array as prescribed by acomputer 3D model, and precisely carve the tiles into some medium,whether plastic or metal or another material. This material would thenneed to be mirror coated, again by whatever method were most convenient,from among the many possible methods. The priority (generally, thoughnot always) is that the reflective surfaces of each mirror tile be veryaccurately flat.

Impress

As an alternate to CNC carving tiles, a malleable substrate could becovered with adhesive mirror mylar, and a CNC arm could position asquare, round, triangular or differently shaped (or series ofdifferently shaped) indent tools, angled appropriately by the CNC arm toimpress each mirror tile, and simply deform the mylar and underlyingsubstrate to the properly angled facets. One advantage of this approachmay be cost effectiveness, compared to the cost of milling a material.

Foil Stamped Micro Array

Tiny mirror arrays, such as those that might be embedded into floortiles, into escalator rubber handrails, could possibly be stamped,hundreds or thousands of mirror tiles at a time, especially if themirror tile arrays were based upon regular patterns.

Individually Articulated

Another construction approach is for each tile to be independentlyindividually articulated, either motorized or articulated by a separatedevice.

Motorized

Motorized mirror tiles under programmatic and interactive control isperhaps the most advanced embodiment of the invention, with a wealth ofreal-time effects not possible otherwise. An interactive motorized arraythat also senses the location of the viewer can update the viewingposition in response to viewer movement, keeping the viewer always inthe viewing position. Motorized displays would be able to update thepresentation images moment by moment, perhaps even quickly enough topresent animations, given a responsive enough set of mirror tilearticulation motors. An interactive motorized display could cyclethrough the complete range of mirror tile array effects, one momentpresenting a 3D image, then become a simple magnifying mirror displayingthe viewer's face, then distort that face into a cartoon, then display aseries of entirely different still images (leaving the viewer wonderingthe source of all these distinctly different images appearing in whatwas moments before clearly just a mirror), display image distortioneffects (such as distortion waves echoing back and forth across thedisplay) cued to viewer movements or sounds and many other differenttypes of images and effects.

A useful adjunct invention would be a device that crawls an array ofarticulated flects and one-by-one updates the entire array. Over thecourse of a few hours, overnight perhaps, a billboard-size display canbe updated to display a new image.

Various interchangeable part mirror tiles can be used to constructarrays, the interchangeable parts being mirror tiles set to differentangles, or the mirror tiles themselves could be constructed, usinginterchangeable parts for adjusting the reflection angle each mirrortile.

Shim Construction Set

Mirror tiles pegs can be individually angled using a shim insertconstruction set, wherein a small set of differently angled shims can befreely combined, to build up the needed angle.

Saw Tooth Profile Array, Visible from Opposing Directions

Viewers approaching from opposing directions can see separate arraysthat resemble the peaks of a neighborhood of houses seen from a lowangle. The south facing angles of the simple gable of each house are themirrors seen from one direction. The north facing gables are an arrayseen from the opposing direction. In this “neighborhood”, the houses arecontiguous. Such an array can be constructed according to a typesettingmodel, where a selection of slightly different angle position and sizemirror tooth pieces take the place of letters.

Angle Cut Pegs:

A construction set of interchangeable mirror tile pegs with (forexample) 100 differently angled heads which can be seated into apegboard set at any rotation could reference any point on a 360° circle,and at any of 100 different angles from vertical.

Component mirror tiles (mirror tiles groups comprised of one mirror eachfor, in one embodiment, R, G and B, in several shades each) can beeasier to target with rotatable rods, since each of a small selection ofreference colors (3 colors, in the case of and RGB component scheme) caneach be larger targets. If a given display uses an RGB component colorspace, with 4 shades each of R, G and B (therefore supporting 64 colors:4×4×4), then there need be just a total of 12 color swatches to target,and these could be oriented radially, for one example, around thedisplay, allowing the proper color to be dialed in, like a hand on aclock—easy to do by hand, provided circular sub-flects that are easilyrotated and then locked at the position of a clock hand.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus configured to display in a sequenceof viewing configurations, a sequence of images, the apparatuscomprising: an array mirror pixels, each mirror pixel that comprisessaid array being comprised of a color display component and a colorsource component, wherein said mirror pixel color display component iscomprised of a mirror which is angled to reflect a sequence of colorsstored in that mirror pixel's associated color source component, andwherein said mirror pixel color source component is comprised of acontiguous sequence of two or more printed displayed colors that arepositioned to be viewable in reflection such that in a first viewingconfiguration, each mirror pixel reflects a first color of its colorsource component, and in a second viewing configuration, each mirrorpixel reflects a second color of its color source component, whereineach viewing configuration comprises relative positioning between mirrorpixel color display components, mirror pixel color source components,and a viewing position, and wherein said array of mirror pixels displaycomponents are statically interconnected fixed in relative position,such that all of the mirror pixels collectively display at the same timetheir respective color sequences.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, whereinthe mirror pixel color display components can freely vary in theirrelative size and shape across the array.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1,wherein the mirror pixel color display components are not contiguous. 4.The apparatus of claim 1, wherein mirror pixel surfaces can be slightlyconcave, to enable them to focally enable the reflection of a smallercolor source to the viewing position.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1,wherein one or more concave mirrors are positioned between one or moregroups of mirror pixels and their color sources, to focally enable themirror pixels to reflect smaller color sources to their viewingposition.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein two or more mirrors areassociated with color source component color sequences that are entirelyor in part identical and, as a result, are optionally angled so as toshare the identical parts of the sequence of a single color sourcecomponent.
 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein two or more mirrors areassociated with color source component color sequences that are entirelyor in part nearly identical and, as a result, are optionally angled soas to share the nearly identical parts of the sequence of a single colorsource component.
 8. The apparatus of claim 1, in which the color sourcecomponents display a continuously variable color sequence, instead of aseries of discrete colors, in order to display a continuously changinganimated image, instead of a series of discrete frames.
 9. The apparatusof claim 1, in which the color source components are displayed byprojection, and in which that projection is under control of a computerwhich changes the projected position of the color source so as to enableit to be accurately reflected towards the viewer's eyes, and in whichthe position of the viewer's eyes are tracked by a computer visionsystem that provides that positioning data to the computer controlledprojector.
 10. The apparatus of claim 1, in which the display of thesequence of images is controlled by movement of the color sourcecomponents.
 11. The apparatus of claim 1, in which the display of thesequence of images is controlled by movement of the viewer along a path.12. The apparatus of claim 1, in which the display of the sequence ofimages is controlled by pivoting said array of display components thatare fixed in relative position.